


Dead Autobots

by dramamelon



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death Fix, Enemies to Friends, Explicit Language, Fix-It, Gen, Minor Character Death, Post-Canon, Some Humor, Some adventure, Some angst, Stranded Together, Transformers Big Bang 2019, Use of alcohol as a coping mechanism, additional tags to be added as necessary, inappropriate Skywarp, intentional starvation for survival purposes, why act like a grown mech when you can act like a sparkling?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-09-23 16:20:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 34,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20343058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramamelon/pseuds/dramamelon
Summary: Sideswipe is not as dead as everyone would believe.Skywarp is finally sick of finding himself betrayed by everyone he gives his loyalty.Telling no one, both separately decide to run away to New Cybertron, hoping to maybe learn who they really are again. Fate steps in, however, and sends the transport shuttle they both book passage on crashing into a vast desert on an alien planet. The only survivors, Skywarp and Sideswipe are forced to figure out how to continue surviving, all while one thinks the other is dead/a figment of his imagination and the second can’t figure out why the other is acting so strange.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Transformers Big Bang 2019! It's been a hell of a ride getting this thing completed, but I'm glad I joined in despite all the woes that hit me. :D
> 
> <strike>I'll add links to artwork as they appear!</strike> It appears! These are awesome arts and I adore both of them for choosing my fic to art for. *__* I wouldn't consider either piece a spoiler, fic tags considered. :D I'll find a way to embed them when their places in the fic come along.
> 
> [red's](https://twitter.com/raadst/status/1164331296358879232) fabulously moody Warp (which, honestly, fits just about anywhere in the fic *LOL*)  
[snailtrain's](https://twitter.com/snailtrain/status/1164335222499901441) fantastic go at a scene from mid-to-end of fic
> 
> They are both amazing and have absolutely made the adventure worth it. :D
> 
> (This starts before Sideswipe's death in Optimus Prime Ongoing and works its way to post-canon after OP and the Unicron mini-series.)

It was a lonely place, wherever he was. Dark and hollow and silent, it stretched in all directions as far as he could perceive. His perceptions were entirely in question, though, as he had no way to test whether they were correct or not. Every time he tried to move, it felt awkward and stifled, as if he really shouldn’t be doing so. No ground seemed to exist. The utter lack of visibility would have been frightening, had he not faced down real fear for millions of years. The silence, however, ticked deep pockets of unease in his spark, as it had from the very beginning of his memory. The lack of his Other’s thoughts never sat well. It dragged so heavy over him that not even his thoughts made a dent in it. His spark flickered hard and he swam in the darkness, suddenly desperate to fill it with sound. He couldn’t even hear his own fearful vocalizations, however, though he knew very well he was making them. He always did, hardly ever silent—

“Sideswipe?”

He swung around at the sound of his name. Something stood in the flood of darkness that he could see. Someone. Tall, bright and white, glowing with a light that had no origin. He knew this mech.

“Jetfire?” His voice reached his audials this time, echoing in the stillness. His hand shot toward his throat, landing where his vocalizer resided beneath the cables. Optics spiraled wide at the suddenness of this change in his environment, Sideswipe barely refrained from throwing himself at Jetfire and clinging like a cyberleech. “What’s going on? Where am I?”

The big mech lifted his hands, urging Sideswipe to calm himself as he stepped—floated?—closer. Sideswipe didn’t know what to make of the odd look in the gentle glow of Jetfire’s blue optics, the odd edge of transparency around his tall shuttle frame. He stopped close enough Sideswipe had to crank his neck to look up at him. “Slow down a moment, please?” he said, an odd hesitance reverberating through his low baritone. “Will you listen to me this time? There’s things you need to know, Sideswipe. Important things.”

That was enough to put Sideswipe back on edge, his spark flickering and twisting hard in its casing. He tried, as always, to put up a tough front. He knew how to take things and roll with whatever punched him. It wasn’t like Jetfire would tell him he was dead because this certainly didn’t look like any version of the Afterspark he’d ever heard a story about. “Go for it,” he said, planting his hands on his hips. “I’m listening.”

“Sideswipe,” Jetfire began—Sideswipe wanted to tell him that he knew his name so stop using it, but he didn’t. “You’re dying.”

The darkness slammed back down, ejecting Jetfire from his presence and the words from his mind.

* * *

That was it. Skywarp was _done_. Even the Joes were kicking him while he was down. He didn’t get it. Over and over, he tried to do the right thing, tried his best to be what everybody wanted him to be, and ended up being taken advantage of. Did he have sucker written on him somewhere he couldn’t see? It would make sense, explain why even the humans had his number.

With a sigh, Skywarp gathered his stuff and wondered if he should stop by Rock’s quarters before he left. Of all the people he’d met, the scruffy human had been the best to him. Pit, Skywarp would go so far as to label him a friend—maybe even best friend—if he was forced into it.

“Hey, Skywarp?”

He looked down to find the guy he was thinking about, a weird expression on his face as he gazed up at Skywarp, hands shoved in his pockets like he didn’t know what else to do with them. Skywarp grunted and scowled down at the man. “What?”

Rock ‘N Roll shifted awkwardly for a moment, but pulled his hands loose and crossed his arms, eyeing Skywarp with a sharp glint. He nodded toward the last datapad Skywarp was in the process of shoving into a subspace pocket. “Were you headed somewhere? I don’t see any of your crap sitting around like usual.”

“Yeah,” Skywarp said, forcing the datapad into the pocket and closing it up. “I was just gonna head out on a quick trip, visit a friend, you know?”

“And you’ve got that cleared?” Rock didn’t look very eager to believe him. He kind of looked like Starscream when Skywarp tried to get one over on him, super annoyed and scowling. Rock didn’t pull it off nearly as well as Screamer, though.

“Sure, absolutely,” Skywarp said, lying through his dentae, wings held stiff behind him. He didn’t care that Rock didn’t believe him. As long as Rock let him go without a problem, things would stay cool between them. “You got an issue with this beyond that?”

“Look,” Rock started, a bit of pleading coming into his tone, “don’t leave, man.” His hands dropped to his sides, held out just a bit in supplication. “I get that you’re getting your chain yanked in all sorts of bad ways, but you’re not the only one around here dealing with that shit. Give it a chance to blow over or get fixed. Please?”

“Do you know how many times I’ve had those arguments used on me, Rock?” he asked, highly displeased the man would do it again. He pointed a sharp finger at him, intent on making his feelings known. “More than I can count and I can count a hell of a lot higher than you. So… let me go and I’ll make sure I come back before I’m missed.”

Judging from the clench in his internals when Rock turned cyberhound pup eyes on him, Skywarp knew he was doomed. Again. Seriously, where had somebody put sucker on his plating? He needed to clean it off.

* * *

“Sideswipe, please, don’t kick me out again,” Jetfire requested, voice gentle and soothing. He floated a little lower in the darkness, putting him more on eye level with Sideswipe than he’d been last time. Every time the shuttle returned, Sideswipe recalled each of Jetfire’s previous appearances in this void where he lingered, if not entirely what words passed between them. It was during the in between times, with the unrelenting black and quiet, that he forgot.

“Why not?” Sideswipe asked, though he really didn’t want to do it. He hadn’t wanted to any of the other times, either, if he thought about it—the knee-jerk reaction over which he had no control only came in light of Jetfire’s revelation. He didn’t want to be alone again. He didn’t want the silence to return. “What are you going to tell me this time that gives me any reason not to just let it all end without having to be aware of it?”

“Will you let me actually say it?” Jetfire questioned in response, obviously trying to sound reasonable rather than desperate.

Sideswipe shrugged, glancing away from Jetfire, though only for a moment. There was only the silent darkness around them, after all. Even with Jetfire there, Sideswipe shivered at the blind silence of it. “Maybe. Can’t make any promises, though,” he said. After a short pause, he admitted, “I haven’t exactly done it on purpose any of the other times, you know.”

Jetfire made a soft, understanding sound. “I’ve been shocking you into it, haven’t I? I apologize that I’ve been so rough on your psyche. It was unintended.”

“Maybe don’t punch me so hard in the face with it this time?” Sideswipe suggested. He lifted a hand and rubbed his chassis, right over his spark. It was flickering again, already anticipating the news. “I mean, I do remember it a little bit, but my processor seem to have decided against fully integrating it.”

“All right,” Jetfire said, nodding as he considered the situation. “Let’s start differently this time, then. Tell me, what precisely do you recall of what I’ve told you?”

Sideswipe turned his thoughts inward, considering. His venting turned harsh as panic began a slow wash over him. He clawed at his chestplates, paint scraping under the assault, forcing himself to calm. “You said I’m dying.” He cycled his optics and focused on the shuttle again, on the otherworldly diffusion of light seeming to radiate off his mostly white frame. “Why am I dying, Jetfire? What happened?”

“You were injured while protecting Alpha Trion,” Jetfire told him, “at the hands of some unhappy Decepticons.”

With a snort, Sideswipe offered Jetfire a half-felt smirk. It sat uneasy over the panic. “Sounds about right, all things considered. Would I really go any other way?” Not that he wanted to die. Who wanted that? Sure, some people made motions about it, but he’d only known a couple that actually threw themselves into the act—and it was pretty easy to do in the middle of a firefight, he had to admit. But, he’d never considered himself one of those people. He realized something must have leaked out about his real feelings on the matter, though, when he noted the curious look on Jetfire’s face.

“Sideswipe—”

“That’s the name, buddy,” he interrupted, getting tired of being nice and definitely tired of being pestered by fear. “I don’t see anyone else around that you need to specify you’re talking to me.”

The shuttle’s expression softened and he nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry, again. I’ve forgotten how easily you’re annoyed when scared.” Waving a vague hand, Jetfire continued before Sideswipe could do more than start to raise his hackles. “I can only imagine how difficult this is for you. Honestly, I’m here because your brother and Arcee, they’re intent on giving you a way to let go and move on. They don’t want you to linger and hold on for whatever reason you’re still here, not in the state you’re in.”

That sounded very much like something Sunstreaker and Arcee would do, once all the other options—the ones with the happy endings—were exhausted. It was enough to set Sideswipe’s spark to flickering and twisting all over again. And irritate him worse than a burr stuck in a seam. “Oh. Why are you warning me?” he asked, twitching and ready to get in someone’s face. “Doesn’t it make sense to just let them do it? Just let it happen?”

“This is untested equipment,” Jetfire admitted. “I wasn’t going to let some obscure piece of tech provided by the Junkions be used in a situation like this without knowing it would actually work.”

“Oh,” Sideswipe said again, the word falling lame and uninspired. With it gone from possibility to foregone ultimate conclusion, Sideswipe knew this was his last chance to speak the truth that embarrassed his warrior spark. He caught his lip between his dentae and gnawed on the vulnerable protometal before finally voicing perhaps the most pivotal question of his existence. “What if I don’t want to die?”

Jetfire’s engine picked up in power output, carefully damped down before it overwhelmed them. “I don’t know if it can be helped, I’m afraid,” Jetfire eventually said, making a helpless gesture with his hands. There was a twitch in his wings that spoke differently than what his words were saying, though. “We tried the best options available to us, Sideswipe. None of them worked.” He paused, then added, “Or never got a chance to work.”

The pointed look that accompanied those words was joined by the wing twitch again. Sideswipe knew exactly what Jetfire was hinting at and, with his bravado worked up now, he was more than willing to give his okay to doing something undoubtedly stupid. “So what if we give a chance to whatever didn’t get one?”

* * *

Gazing out the medibay window at the blue Earth sky, now blissfully missing the massive metal planet-creature-thing, Skywarp sighed and placed a hand against his side. He’d just gotten used to being able to warp again, then bam! All that repair work flew out the door and left him stuck having to get around like the average Cybertronian. He frowned and cursed down at the medslab he sat on. “Slag it all.”

“Come on, Warp, are you really going to let this get you down?”

Turning a flat stare on the goofy blue Seeker that stood beside the medslab, Skywarp flicked his wings with such force that they created a momentary vacuum in the air. It collapsed upon itself with a _pop!_ While nothing like the sonic booms Thundercracker created or the crashing of the hollows left by his own teleportations, it was satisfying enough in that moment. Then it wasn’t, thoughts of teleporting reminding him of his once again malfunctioning warp drive. He flopped back on the too hard berth, scowling at the ceiling. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I am. This isn’t like you if you lost your booms, TC. You’d hardly even notice, considering you’ve never used them outside of battle. Me? I teleport… teleport_ed_, sorry, past tense _again_, all the damn time. It’s who I am.”

Thundercracker sighed and shook his helm, looking down at Skywarp with one of those dumb expressions of his all over his stupid face.

“Look,” Thundercracker said, already sounding like a loser saying something only a loser would say, “I understand better than you think, Skywarp. I really do.” A small organic whimper sounded from the floor, reminding Skywarp his fellow flyer had brought his Earth dog with him. “And Buster understands, too.” Thundercracker peeked down at her. “You need outside, huh, Buster? Just give me a few more seconds, girl.”

Not interested, anymore, Skywarp shuttered his optics and didn’t listen to whatever else Thundercracker intended to throw at him.

* * *

He hadn’t been out of the tank long, still obviously needing a time to fully recover from the ordeal of a frame transfer. He appeared the same as the always. It had simply been the easier way to overcome all the damage, plus the advantage of a body to keep people out of his business until he was ready. He was lodging with Jetfire for the time being, hidden away in a mountain retreat like some sort of superhero.

Looking around the large quarters, Sideswipe tried his best not to wobble on his pedes. He wasn’t about to miss discovering this. Of all the bots he’d thought might be the type to have a secret lair, Jetfire was definitely not among them. Big enough to house a sizable mech for obvious reasons, it was filled with all the sorts of things Sideswipe figured a scientist might want, equipment and datapads and places to use them all. The walls, though, those were anything but boring.

“Are you all right, Sideswipe?” Jetfire asked from the door, carrying in a last couple of crates from outside. “Do I need to look at anything?”

“Did you get Sunny to paint the walls?” he asked, turning a curious look on Jetfire. “The murals look like something he would do.”

Jetfire paused as he closed the door, quiet. “Yes, he did,” he answered, making certain the door closed with barely a sound. Then, he gave Sideswipe a concerned look as he asked, “Do they make you uncomfortable?”

Making a slow plod toward the closest one—a scene of a glittering Iacon night—and tilted his helm as he considered the painted image. He carefully swept his fingertips along the bottom edge. “No,” he said. “I just haven’t seen anything like them in a long time. I’m…,” he stopped to really think about it, then continued with a small, but real smile, “I’m glad I’m here to see them.”

A large hand curled around his shoulder pauldron and he lifted his face to peer up at Jetfire. The shuttle gazed back down on him with a gentle look that wouldn’t have been out of place on a much younger Optimus, before the war changed him. “You’re safe here, Sideswipe. No one of importance knows about this place and those that do know, well, they know better than to bother me here. And your brother couldn’t care less about coming back after I paid him for his work.” Jetfire caught both of his shoulders, then, and aimed him toward a deeper part of the habsuite. “Let me show you the rest of the place.”

Sideswipe nodded and let himself be led down a wide hall.

* * *

He’d been prepared for the surgery only a short while ago, knowing it inescapable if he ever wanted to teleport again. Or just have a fully functioning set of internals, really. He couldn’t remember all the half-broken pieces his frame contained, but he knew it was enough that he’d be under wrench for probably the next week going by Earth time. Skywarp had never been more thankful for medically-induced stasis than right then.

“Thank you, TC, for something, I guess,” he muttered to himself. His not-quite-friend had made certain the Autobot medical staff knew precisely what kind of patient Skywarp was and gotten him some decent treatment. If he went through all that and wasn’t kept under the whole time, he’d have been bored out of his helm before the first hour was up. Never mind the Autoclod medics assured him they did it for everyone, whatever their faction.

He settled a bit more on the medslab and was staring at the patterns on the ceiling tiles when a single loud and aggressive thump sounded on his door. It was followed immediately by it being thrown open and one of the yellow Autobots striding in as if he owned the place. Blue optics glared at Skywarp as if he were about to do something wrong and bad. Skywarp gave the mech a long and unimpressed look. “I’m sorry, Mister Fancy Helm-fins,” he said with a slow drawl, “I didn’t realize privacy wasn’t allowed. Just imagine what I could have been doing instead of contemplating the ceiling when you busted in here.”

Judging by the twist of Sunstreaker’s mouth at the comment, it accomplished exactly what Skywarp hoped. He allowed himself a small smirk as Sunstreaker took a bit more care in shutting the door than he had in opening it—Skywarp was somewhat amazed it hadn’t left a hole or even a dent in the wall. When Sunstreaker turned to face him again, the yellow mech’s scowl deepened. “You disgust me.”

“Is there something I can do for you?” Skywarp asked, letting his exhaustion with the world at large show. He didn’t care in the least at that moment he was showing such vulnerability around someone highly skilled at dealing death. He watched as the Autobot puzzled over this before delivering his obviously planned diatribe.

Sunstreaker sucked in a deep breath and vented out slow and audible, the vicious look not leaving his optics. “I just wanted you to know that some of the parts they’ll be putting into you came from my brother,” he said and Skywarp knew the shock that jolted through him was visible in the widening of his optics and tensing of his frame. Sunstreaker seemed appeased at the reaction, at least, losing some of the stiffness in his posture. Until his scowl deepened once more and he wagged a finger in Skywarp’s direction. “If I hear you disrespected any of those parts, got them damaged enough they needed replaced?” He lowered the finger and stalked to the medical berth, hands slapping down on the edge as he loomed over Skywarp, voice dropping to a deep growl. “I will tear you to pieces and crush your spark in my bare hands. Understood?”

It wasn’t often that Skywarp felt intimidated these days. Not that he felt particularly intimidated by Sunstreaker, not really. It was much more the emotion behind the words, that was a lot more threatening than it had any right to be. “Yeah, I get you,” Skywarp said, placating the Autobot. Because he wasn’t the best threaded bolt in the box, he waited only a beat before asking, “Your brother’s dead, isn’t he? I swear I heard something about that. Before the Unicron thing, right?”

All the response he got was a hard stare, then Sunstreaker set his shoulders and left. Much to Skywarp’s surprise, he didn’t slam the door behind him. With Sunstreaker gone, though, the tension drained from his frame. He swiped a hand over his face and shook his helm.

“Crazy Autobot,” he told the empty room. “And now I’m gonna have dead crazy Autobot parts inside me. Wonderful.”

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

A couple weeks later, Skywarp’s entire morning at that point consisted of pretending he wasn’t being glared at by Sunstreaker from across the busy energon bar. The surgery had gone smoothly, his week of stasis and a few breems of lecture from his surgeon—he still couldn’t remember the guy’s name—left him out of the Autobot City medibay and in the care of Thundercracker. Until he could get his own scrap together and do something else, that was, Skywarp amended.  
  
A tall glass of vivid magenta energon was shoved in front of him, replacing an empty one, as Thundercracker joined him at the tall, island-style table. Taking his attention away from the golden Autobot, Skywarp sighed and slumped over the glass, tapping at it with a finger. “Thanks,” he said, not particularly feeling it. “You didn’t have to do this, you know. I’m plenty capable of taking care of myself.” Thundercracker sat next to him and leaned down until he was in Skywarp’s view, a concerned look on his dumb face. Primus, he was such a goof. “How did a guy like you ever make it as a Decepticon?”  
  
“Very carefully,” Thundercracker told him, a small smirk curving his mouth. He slid a hand slowly along the wood grain pattern etched into the steel surface of the table, gently nudging Skywarp’s glass all of a human hair closer to him. “Drink. You need it, the doc said so. I even already mixed in the additives he gave you.”  
  
The scowl that crossed Skywarp’s face was honestly starting to feel like his default setting, but he grabbed up the glass and choked down half of it in one go. He wiped the back of his free hand across his mouth and glared at Thundercracker. “There. That make you happy, TC? Did I do it right?”  
  
Thundercracker sighed and straightened up, hands curling around the glass set in front of himself. He twisted it in circles, the thick crystal dragging roughly over the table. “You know,” Thundercracker said, his tone the one that always told Skywarp he was about to spout the obvious. He was not disappointed. “I kind of get the feeling _you’re_ not very happy.”  
  
“No need to look so concerned about me,” Skywarp replied, sipping at what remained in his glass. He dragged his wings back and forth behind him, sending a slow wobble through the air. It was a big and unmistakable brush off, but Thundercracker obviously didn’t listen because he didn’t back off in the slightest.  
  
“Warp—”  
  
“Stop right there,” Skywarp vented out in a sharp huff, giving the other Seeker a hard glare. “Are you going to just keep bothering me about stupid slag?”  
  
“Yeah, I am,” Thundercracker said, leaning an elbow on the table and lifting his glass to his mouth. He drank then swirled the energon around the bottom. “Look, I know you’re an asshole—you always have been—but could you maybe try to be a little grateful that I’m not getting pissed off at your attitude and leaving you to deal with Sunstreaker alone?”  
  
Skywarp grunted at the mention of the Autobot and relented with the faintest impression of a smile. He tossed back the last of his energon, smacking and clucking his glossa as the taste of the additives went a bit bitter with the final not quite mixed slurry. “Whatever,” he said, clicking the empty glass down on the table. “I just… What am I supposed to do now? No way I’m heading back to the Joe base.” Not with the things he’d heard when they thought he wasn’t around. “That’s done and over.”  
  
“Something happen?” Thundercracker asked, leaning a bit closer. That concern of his evolved some, growing into a visage of worry. His wide blue wings lifted upward in alertness. “I know Marissa’s dad is connected with them. Do I have to talk to him about it?”  
  
Of all the things Thundercracker could have said, Skywarp was definitely not expecting the insinuation that the other Seeker would use his human’s G.I. Joe father in Skywarp’s favor. It kind of made his spark pulse in a way that he hadn’t felt in a while, the kind that happened when someone actually seemed to care. He steadied his disinterested mask and shook his helm. “Nah, don’t worry about it,” he said, waving the offer off. “Maybe I’ll just, I don’t know, head on over to New Cybertron, give that place a whirl. See what all the fuss is about, y’know?”  
  
Thundercracker, big softy that he was, heard that and became a pile of nostalgic mush. “That sounds amazing,” Thundercracker said, swirling his energon again, a sweet and distant look filtering into his optics. “I’ve seen pictures. Never thought I’d see anything like that again.”  
  
“Yeah,” Skywarp agreed, staring down into his empty glass. He softly buffeted the air with his wings some more, contemplative. His situation was not an ideal one, never really had been. Looking at it now, with plenty of distance, Skywarp was seeing just how very badly life had treated him, even at its best, and it wasn’t just a matter of him being the common denominator. It wasn’t! He could vanish, make a completely new start of it. No one was going to stop him anymore. There wasn’t anyone, Functionists or otherwise, waiting to tell him a flyer couldn’t solo climb the Manganese Mountains just because he had wings and thrusters. Just thinking about it gave him the deep urge to do exactly that. “There’s really not anything holding me here, I guess. Maybe I _will_ do it.”  
  
Thundercracker bumped a pede against his ankle joint, giving him one of those goofy-aft smiles he’d gotten so good at again. “Hey, don’t let me and Buster stop you. Maybe we could even go with you, at least for a bit.”  
  
The fact that Thundercracker included his dog almost made Skywarp laugh. He didn’t get it, but the blue flyer’s attachment to his squishy Earth animal had become strangely sparkwarming, anyway. Not that he’d ever admit it, of course. “Yeah, no worries, TC,” he finally said, feeling maybe not quite as grumpy as had become his norm. A decision made and nonjudgmental support from someone he had tried to tell himself didn’t matter was lifting a cloud he hadn’t realized was long-settled on his shoulders. “I think it’ll be good.”  
  
“Want me to set up a date with the space bridge?” Thundercracker offered, leaning back with another smile, one that crooked up one corner of his mouth a bit higher than the other. “I’ve got connections, you know, and it’s a long trip by transport.”  
  
Skywarp considered the offer. It was a long trip by transport, but there was also something to be said for taking the slower route sometimes. He leaned hard into the palm of one hand, propped up by the table, wings shifting slow and thoughtful behind him. “Let me give it a think,” he said. “I’ll let you know.”  
  
Later, after a bit more small talk, much more relaxed and friendly than before, Skywarp walked out the door of the bar and immediately opened his comm to book passage on the next shuttle out. Thundercracker would eventually figure it out when Skywarp didn’t show up at either of their habs that night.  
  
* * *  
  
“Are you sure this is what you want?” Jetfire asked, handing over a chip that contained the requested boarding pass. He looked sad, but Sideswipe was pretty sure the bigger mech wouldn’t make any fuss if he didn’t change his mind. This was kind of the expected last offer of allowing him to change his mind. “Sunstreaker would—”  
  
“Sorry, Jetfire,” Sideswipe said, cutting him off before he could finish. If there was anything he didn’t want to hear at that moment, it was how much Sunstreaker would like to know that Sideswipe wasn’t as dead as he thought. “Sunny doesn’t need to know. Not right now, anyway,” he added with a tired sigh. He shook his helm a little, trying to push thoughts of his brother from his mind. “He needed time to get himself together again, right? It’s my turn.”  
  
Jetfire eyed him contemplatively, optical ridges drawn tight over the bridge of his nose. “You’ll let him know, though? When you’re ready?”  
  
Caught by a strange wave of nervousness, he shifted the way his travel bag lay slung across his chassis. It wasn’t big, but it held things that just wouldn’t fit in his subspace pockets, things he was too sentimental about to risk undergoing mass shifting. He shrugged and couldn’t quite meet Jetfire’s gaze as he said, “I’ll keep it in mind.”  
  
He only flinched a little when Jetfire’s big hand settled on his shoulder. “That’s good enough for now,” he said, his tone and field soothing. “Let’s get you to that transport before it leaves without you. I’d hate to make you wait around for the next one.”  
  
Sideswipe tugged on the heavy drape of alien cloth Jetfire had procured for him, cloaked in nondescript obscurity under the covering. The color of wet dust, it wasn’t the only over garment adopted by Cybertronians in recent times, coming into favor as they blended cultures with the many sapient species calling Earth home now. With the deep hood pulled over his helm, Sideswipe would be completely hidden from anyone that might look his way and, with the sheeting rain coming down outside, no one would question why he wore the covering. Finally, Sideswipe made himself look Jetfire in the optics again and gave a sharp nod. “Let’s do this.”  
  
* * *  
  
More than one of the bots on the long range transport shuttle gave Skywarp cautious looks as he walked down the aisle. He ignored all of them, except the little sparkling one of the neutrals had with them. His spark flipped and he gave the kid a quick smile and waggle of wings, eliciting a loud binary chirp and wriggle of tiny hands in response. It had been more vorns than he could count since he’d seen one of those, never mind the kid’s caretaker swiftly hiding the bitlet away before the big, bad Decepticon could do something. Skywarp vented hard, glared contempt at the caretaker, then continued toward the back of the shuttle.  
  
He found an open seat over the main body of the wings, glad for unassigned seating and pleasantly shocked that it was designed to be comfortable for flyers. It wasn’t often he’d come across such in public transport. He supposed it probably fell to designers never thinking flyers might use shuttles to get anywhere, even in long distance travel. Skywarp settled in after tucking his bag under the seat and wondered if he could get away with taking up the whole row of seats. Being able to stretch and work the kinks out of his cables and joints over the course of such a extended trip sounded wonderful. As luck would have it, Skywarp retained the highly menacing aura he’d cultivated, and it still worked in his favor. At least in this instance.  
  
Bots shuffled down the aisle, paused at his row, then shuffled quickly onward with barely more than a glance of consideration. If they even made it that far before being put off by his appearance, anyway, much to his amusement. The departure time loomed ever closer and Skywarp happily pondered just how long he would actually wait before lifting his pedes and turning to sprawl across all three seats. No longer than it took to escape the atmosphere, he decided—it was always easier to ride out that sort of velocity while strapped in upright. He’d learned that through past experience. He grimaced as he recalled the scrapes and dents earned that day.  
  
::_Good morning, everybody! The name is Troposphere and I’m your pilot for this flight,_:: said a perky voice over the shuttle’s internal comm system. ::_We’ll be lifting off in five kliks, so please find yourself some seats and get ready to hold on tight because it’s about to get bumpy—_::  
  
::_Trope, don’t scare them._::  
  
::_Fine. Just ruin my fun, why don’t you?_::  
  
Skywarp muffled a snort and rolled his optics, tuning out whatever else the pilot and the mech Skywarp assumed was the navigator said. That sort of shtick might work on the neutrals from the colonies, but a mech like him? He slouched in his seat, hands folded low across his pelvic armor. This trip was either going to suck because people wouldn’t shut up or be a good time to take a long nap. The thought of dropping into recharge for most of it—especially with an entire row to himself—was highly appealing. As made a pleased imagining of doing just that, a new bot slipped onto the shuttle at the last moment, the lead attendant closing up the door behind him.  
  
Watching the bot with a curious optic, Skywarp eyed the dripping cloak he wore. It was dry and clear outside, so this guy had probably come quite a distance to catch this particular shuttle. He wondered if it was like his own decision to jump the first available flight to New Cybertron, no matter where it was leaving from. Then the bot stopped at his row and stared at him from the darkness under his hood. All Skywarp could see was a pair of dim blue optics, not enough to light up the bot’s faceplates, but the EM field that briefly brushed against his was wild and shocked and disturbingly familiar. He gave the bot a confused frown. Before he acted on the idea he might know the guy, though, the bot turned away and continued down the aisle.  
  
Skywarp tried to ignore the strange interlude, told himself that it wasn’t important, but couldn’t stop peeking over the back of his seat to watch as the bot finally found a spot. Sometimes, something was _too_ weird and this was one of those times. For a moment, Skywarp thought the bot might sit down while still wearing the sopping gear, but the bot decided against it, dark hands coming up through slits in the fabric to unclasp the buckles that held it closed at throat and down the front of his chassis. Intense red and coal black paint showed through the opening, moments later followed by the reveal of a frame and face that Skywarp absolutely _knew_ should not be there. No doubt about it. He _definitely_ knew the guy. He also knew the guy was dead.  
  
Swinging back around to sit face forward, Skywarp tried not to think too hard. No, it couldn’t be him. That absolutely was not the dead mech that supplied some of the parts used to repair him only a couple of Earth weeks ago. He caught his field and wrapped it up tight around himself before it could flare out and exclaim to the entire shuttle his sudden and vaguely fearful confusion.  
  
“Maybe TC knows,” Skywarp muttered to himself, sinking lower in his seat. “No, can’t ask him or he’ll know what I’m up to before I want him to. Dammit, this sucks.” He scowled again and rubbed his hands over his face. “I am not on a long range transport shuttle with a dead Autobot sitting in the back like he’s never been dead in his life. Nope.”  
  
Much to his consternation, his wings fluttered in a pattern of obvious nervousness. A quiet growl set at the lowest frequency available to his vocalizer ripped loose as he forcefully made the movement stop. This was going to be a difficult trip, he realized. Maybe he could see about taking the next shuttle— A small jerk of movement informed him the shuttle was in motion, meaning it was too late. He groaned low in his intake and shifted his gaze to watch out the porthole in his row as they quickly pulled away from the Earth, leaving the organic planet and its frame-smearing filth behind. He tossed one more small peek between the seats at the mech sat at the back of the shuttle as they made it out far enough the curve of the planet became visible in the porthole.  
  
Unless it was some sort of Cybertronian doppelganger, he had no doubt he was looking at Sunstreaker’s dead brother. With all the things that had gone down during his lifetime, Skywarp sincerely hoped he wasn’t dealing with a ghost now. He remembered hearing what Starscream got up to when _he_ had a dead Autobot. That was the sort of icing his oil cake did _not_ need. He froze when those still dim blue optics shifted and caught his.  
  
Skywarp’s vocalizer glitched through a small hiccup of panic as he jerked back around to face the back of the row ahead of him. “Please be either someone else or don’t be dead,” he whispered as they rode out the last bit of liftoff through the Earth’s outer atmosphere. “I can’t do a dead guy.”  
  
* * *  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of dead OCs, y'all, including bitlets. Read with caution if that bothers you.

They were perhaps halfway to New Cybertron by Skywarp’s guess when it happened, a good Earth week into their journey.  
  
Skywarp, after much trial and error with the application of engex, had finally mentally distanced enough from the ghost sitting at the back of the shuttle to relax a bit. He lay stretched out across his otherwise empty row and watched the scenery pass by through the porthole on the far side of the aisle. He was particularly focused on the space-faring shuttle wing, cutting through the vastness of open space like his own wings sliced through the denseness of a planetary atmosphere. It made him feel at one with the shuttle, sinking into the vibrations of the vehicle that encompassed him. He almost understood how some bots could get into all the really weird religious slag, not that he wasn’t a believer of sorts. His attention was quickly distracted, though, as the leggy femme attendant made her way down the aisle, jotting notes on a datapad as she asked after the fueling needs of the other passengers.  
  
Sitting himself upright and cranking his helm around to work some kinks out of his neck cabling, Skywarp offered her a grin as she came his way. “Hey, beautiful,” he greeted, not even the slightest put off by the narrow-opticked frown she gave him. Primus, he loved ticking off bots. He flicked a flirty wing and winked. “We still got any of the good stuff on this tub?”  
  
As she opened her mouth to retort, the rolling boom of a quick series of explosions registering from underneath their pedes. The shuttle rocked hard, jarring everyone from their seats. “What the frag?” the attendant gasped, clutching at the back of the aisle seat of his row. All around them, passengers reacted with the shock and confusion Skywarp expected for the uninitiated neutrals. Skywarp himself kept his seat easily and instead focused on the floor. His pedes picked up an alarming and rapid uptick in temperature. He barely heard the femme as she patted the air near him, telling him to, “Stay here.”  
  
Ignoring her as she scurried toward the pilot cabin, Skywarp reached down to touch the floor with his hand. His pedes weren’t lying, his fingers picked up the same growing heat. “Slag,” he cursed under his breath, spark pulsing with growing frequency. “This is not good.”  
  
He swung around to search outside the porthole behind him, finding nothing from that angle. The distressed passengers made it difficult, but Skywarp shoved his way across the aisle and pushed confused neutrals out of his way to get to the other side. The floor was even warmer here, gone passed warm to hot already. He hissed and bounded up onto the seats, not caring to singe his pedes. Peering out the porthole, he finally managed a glimpse of the damage. Bits of the shuttle were breaking off and floating away as he watched. No doubt the fire continued to burn due to the ship’s forcefields still working, holding in the shuttle’s atmosphere and giving the flames fuel on which to feed. The damage, they could survive. The fire? Not necessarily a death sentence. The alien planet growing ever larger in the roundness of the porthole? _That_ was an issue.  
  
“Oh, scrap,” he whispered, leaning in closer and pressing his hand to the viewing glass. Around him, the panic increased as the other passengers began to notice, as well. “Oh, frag me now….”  
  
“Shit, shit, shit!” said a familiar voice from the next row back, audible even above the rising chaos among the civilians. “We are so fucking screwed. What the hell did I do to deserve this?”  
  
Skywarp spiraled his optics wide and jerked his head around to stare at the dead Autobot. “I don’t know what you did,” he blurted out before he could think better of talking to a ghost, “but I didn’t do anything! Pits, I helped save the fragging universe! I am not ready to be dead.”  
  
Wide-opticked and disbelieving, Sunstreaker’s dead brother shot right back at him, “Neither am I!”  
  
Then the shuttle lurched hard as planet’s gravity caught it in a hard grip, setting them into a downward plunge as another explosion rocked the shuttle from the cargo hold. Skywarp’s internals clenched as he glanced at the quickly nearing surface of the planet, biomes spinning past faster than he could identify them. He wasn’t overcharged enough for this. He looked at Sideswipe again. “Brace ourselves?”  
  
Sideswipe’s expression turned confused. “Can’t you teleport us out of here?”  
  
“Nope,” Skywarp bemoaned, fingers curling to clutch at the sill around the porthole. “Doctor’s orders. Warp drive is on enforced medical lockdown for another three weeks.”  
  
The red mech gave him a look that perfectly illustrated the sinking in his own tanks. “Okay, right. Brace ourselves, then,” Sideswipe said with a sharp nod of agreement, probably the first time the Autobot frontliner and Skywarp ever agreed on anything. Probably also the last time.  
  
* * *  
  
The lack of screaming metal was the first thing to make sense as he drifted back to consciousness. Second, Sideswipe became intimately aware of just how very much he hurt _everywhere_. His rattled brain module slowly started putting the pieces together as he onlined his optics to stare up at the cold wreckage above him. The shuttle’s frame barely held together, scraps of plating ripped from the body and letting harsh sunlight spear into the interior where a haze of dust softened it to a golden glow.  
  
He tried to curse, but all that escaped his vocalizer was a static-laden warble. Attempting to sit himself upright resulted in learning a massive strut from a no longer existing wall lay across his torso. Sideswipe groaned and lifted his helm to see just how trapped he was. At least half a dozen other struts accompanied the first. He let his helm thump back down onto the wreckage below him. “Shit.”  
  
Ah, his vocalizer was back online. Excellent progress.  
  
Forcing himself to slow down, Sideswipe took better stock of his situation. Though his entire frame ached, a decided lack of crushing pain and the continued ability to wiggle his pedes under the pile made it clear the full weight of the debris wasn’t actually pressing down on him. Good to know. It gave him hope that the pain simply came from having been knocked around in the crash rather than any sort of real injury.  
  
Overhead, the bones of the shuttle dangled still sparking wires and shredded plating. Eyeing the creaking mass, Sideswipe considered his highly unstable bubble of safety before shifting to start easing out of the tiny pocket. It would do him no good at all to be where he was when it eventually collapsed, but he was pretty sure getting out might just be the thing that _caused_ the collapse. With a slow, resolute vent, he recommenced process of very carefully working his way out of the loose debris and heavy beams.  
  
“Thank Primus,” he muttered, as he finally eased himself free, scooting back on his aft. Clear of the danger, he started brushing away the dust. Then, with no more warning than a whining creak, the little pocket closed in on itself with a resounding boom and clatter, buffeting him with a cloud of broken shuttle bits and sand kicked up from the ground. Sideswipe coughed and stared at the result. “Damn, that would have hurt.”  
  
A slow stretch and testing of his limbs exposed a few new bumps and dents—some deeper than others—but nothing so disastrous as to leave him bleeding out everything down to his innermost. A successful extraction, then. Jetfire would be pleased to learn all his hard work had not entirely gone to waste, Sideswipe thought. Still, it might have been nice to at least been dent free for more than a few days after leaving Jetfire’s private little hideaway. Sighing, Sideswipe carefully got his pedes under him and eased himself up until he stood upright. He looked around, seeing nothing but vast swathes of sun-blasted sand in every direction. Apparently, they’d plowed into a desert. He groaned and shook off the dust and sand that clung to him. “Awesome.”  
  
Looking at the wreckage, Sideswipe noted the shuttle had broken into sections. Some of them maintained more structural integrity, but where he stood, next to the collapsed bit? It sagged and showed severe warping from the pressures and heat of reentry on damaged plating, not surprising right above an area blown out by multiple explosions. An impressive amount of the material remained intact, though. It was… or, well, it _had_ been a new shuttle, as per Jetfire’s small talk on the way to the airport.  
  
His shock-jumbled processor shifted priority trees as he swept his gaze over the crumple of the shuttle’s interior. They didn’t stand out as much as they could have, not with their frames gone gray, but he started to notice the rest of the passengers. He eased through the wreck, checking them one after the other. Sifting carefully through the debris and charred sand, slag glass crunching under his pedes, Sideswipe found not the slightest hint of color left on any frame he uncovered. From the oldest elder to the youngest sparkling, all of them were gone dull with the matte gray of Cybertronian death. Were he a more religious mech, he would have said a few words for them, but he hadn’t managed to retain such leanings over the passing vorns.  
  
“Dammit,” he muttered, shaking his helm and narrowly avoiding giving in to the desire to punch the side of the wrecked shuttle. He diverted the energy into giving the sand a sharp kick. “What a waste.”  
  
“Oh, frag it all! What did I do to deserve this?”  
  
Sideswipe swung around to stare back the way he’d come, perhaps faster than he should have, considering the groaning of the shuttle’s remains around him. Buried under pieces of the wreck like Sideswipe himself had been, hidden by the deep shadows cast by the jagged remnants of the roof hanging over him, lay Skywarp. Red optics lit the dark with a dim glow, his mostly black frame only a vague outline where it wasn’t trapped out of sight. Of _course_ Sideswipe’s least favorite Seeker had survived the crash, too. Rolling his optics, Sideswipe watched for a moment as Skywarp shoved and pushed at the pile of debris that lay atop him. If Sideswipe was any judge, Skywarp was just shy of panicking.  
  
Leaning down to lift a sheet of twisted metal from where it lay near his pedes, Sideswipe called out to him, “You know what a horse is?”  
  
“Seriously?!” Skywarp paused and stared at him with a hard, disbelieving glare. “I hate my life.” Then, he promptly ignored Sideswipe. From the rise of creaking and groaning from his direction, the Seeker was working on digging himself free with greater effort now.  
  
“Yeah, I hate it, too. Never get to finish my best lines,” Sideswipe said. “I guess I don’t have to, though, considering you’re doing just fine getting yourself loose.” Sunk spark sinking deeper, he squatted beside the youngling he’d revealed under the chunk of hull plating. He passed a hand over one tiny wing that was bent nearly double behind the small frame. A large shard of metal pierced through the little chassis, right through the spark chamber. Sideswipe wondered how Skywarp would react to seeing it, then gently replaced the piece of plating that had covered the bitlet, deciding he really didn’t want to know right then. “Don’t bring everything down on top of us, all right?”  
  
“Oh, you’re a funnybot, aren’t you?” Skywarp asked, full of griping and sarcasm. “Why does it always work this way?” He sounded as if he were talking to himself more than Sideswipe, leaving Sideswipe wondering if he should be confused. A loud shriek of twisted metal accompanied the Seeker pushing free of whatever lay in the pile atop him, a faint rumble shivering through the whole of the broken structure.  
  
“Don’t move more yet,” Sideswipe warned, holding out a hand to still him. “Let it settle before you get up, okay?”  
  
Skywarp scowled, sparing him the barest glance, but muttered something under his breath about it probably being a good idea and held still. Sideswipe was glad he took at least that much under advisement—he hadn’t expected that much from the mech, honestly. Once the groans and creaks stopped, Skywarp was on his pedes and took a cautious step in Sideswipe’s direction, coming into the jagged beams of dusty sunlight. Taking quick stock of the Decepticon flyer, Sideswipe noted he was as dinged up as Sideswipe himself. Skywarp flexed his wings, no doubt making certain they were still functional.  
  
“Why the frag did it have to be you?” Skywarp said with a grunt, pressing a hand against the cracked glass of his cockpit. He sneered down on Sideswipe while he complained. “Of everyone I could have gotten stuck with….”  
  
“Surprisingly,” Sideswipe said, slowly forcing his aching frame to stand again. “I understand entirely.”  
  
Skywarp snorted and kicked at the debris under his pedes, much like Sideswipe had earlier. “Not seeing much movement around here,” he said, making a slow trail across the wreckage to give the other side a look. “This is it, isn’t it? No one else.”  
  
“Oh, I’ve found people,” Sideswipe said, pointedly not looking in the direction of the rumpled piece of hull plating hiding the tiny grayed frame. “Not one of them alive outside you and me, though.” He really hoped Skywarp didn’t make motions about seeing proof _right now_.  
  
Fortunately, Skywarp didn’t, giving Sideswipe a long and odd look, instead. Sideswipe wasn’t entirely certain what to make of that. He’d never drawn quite that sort of searching and wary expression from the Seeker—or anyone—before. Skywarp stepped back and turned his attention over the rest of the downed shuttle. He waved a dismissive hand over his shoulder as he made a decisive beeline toward the cockpit. “I’ve seen enough deadies in my life that I don’t care to see any more of them.”  
  
Sideswipe watched him go, not entirely certain what had just happened, then sighed and followed after. He could catalogue any other gray frames later. They weren’t going anywhere, after all.  
  
* * *  
  
Not giving himself the opportunity to really look at the crumpled frames buried in the wreck, Skywarp worked his way to the cockpit. He knew making certain the shuttle’s emergency distress beacon worked was imperative to getting his aft off whatever planet he was stuck on as soon as possible. His internal beacon wouldn’t accomplish slag, if it even worked after a landing like that, and he wasn’t going to trust an annoying ghost to find the shuttle’s beacon and start it up for him.  
  
With the rampant destruction rained on the shuttle, Skywarp was not surprised when the door of the cockpit gave way under nothing more than a pede shoved against it. Seeing as it was hanging half off the frame as it was, he’d figured it would take even less force. The interior of the cockpit was nothing less than outright trashed, much to his dismay.  
  
He shied away from the remains of the chirpy pilot and his less enthusiastic navigator, both somehow still in their seats… mostly. Their frames were gray as could be and definitely in more pieces than was right. With a little searching, Skywarp found the distress beacon stashed under the main console—perfectly placed to force him to squeeze between the two bodies to reach it. He shuddered but did what was necessary. A large hole in the floor under the console, stretching from one side of the shuttle nose to the other, left him rather certain the beacon was probably beyond help. Once he got it free, jagged loose wires across what had once been the bottom of the beacon was proof enough that at least a portion of it had been sheered off in the landing. He was pretty sure the only reason it was still around was because it had been bolted to the underside of the console.  
  
“_Scrap_,” he cursed, shoving broken parts out of the way to get a deeper look at the device. It was battered and crushed on more than one side beyond the side that just didn’t exist anymore, but it was all he had. If he could find pieces to repair the important bits, maybe there was a tiny chance he could get it working. It wasn’t much, but it was better than hoping anyone out searching for the missing shuttle came across whatever random planet this was and found him before things went _really_ bad.  
  
“What did you find?” asked the dead Autobot from the door of the cockpit. “Anything useful?”  
  
Skywarp tensed, holding his wings a tad higher than normal, to keep himself from jumping at the unexpected interruption. He pulled in a steadying cycle of sun-warmed air and let it out in a low hiss through barely opened vents. “Just what used to be the distress beacon,” he answered, not entirely sure why he was speaking to a ghost. Again. He glanced behind himself, taking in the red mech. He sure looked solid, but the stories didn’t say ghosts couldn’t be, and he was giving Skywarp a weird look. “What?” Skywarp asked, barking the word in annoyance. “Did I say something wrong?”  
  
“No,” Sideswipe replied, shaking his helm a little. “Nothing wrong.” His mouth slipped into a faint, optic-rolling smile and he turned, heading back down the still mostly straight center aisle of the shuttle wreckage. “I’ll start seeing what we’ve got for supplies and shelter while you get that thing yanked all the way out.”  
  
“Whatever,” Skywarp called after him before returning his focus to the broken beacon and the handful of cables that were still attached to the console. Dead mechs didn’t get things done, no matter what they said, so Skywarp put shelter and supplies next on his list of things to do.  
  
* * *  
  
Knowing they’d come down in the middle of desert, Sideswipe didn’t expect to find much in the way of shelter in the natural terrain. There were distant rocky slopes visible in the strongest zoom available to his optics, but any cave they might offer would not do him any good. Of course, it might be different for Skywarp, being a flyer. Sideswipe had precisely zero problems deciding his own needs as a sand-bound ground model stood a little more important right then.  
  
He gave another quick look over the grayed frames in the shuttle as he made his way. He wasn’t entirely sure how appropriate it was to be relieved there were no surprise survivors—his moral coding had never been top notch. Knowing none of them currently suffered through terrible injuries neither he nor Skywarp were capable of repairing put his spark a little more at ease, though. Best not to worry about it, he decided. Much more top of the priority list was finding reasonable shelter and digging through the debris to see what kind of energon supply they were dealing with.  
  
A survey in the immediate vicinity apprised Sideswipe that absolutely nothing would lend itself to a shelter beyond the remains of the shuttle itself. He sighed and eyed the broken sections, pondering which would be easiest to clear out. They’d need something for at least a few nights while they built something more functional from the rest of the scraps. (They. How optimistic he sounded. He’d be lucky if Skywarp stopped being weird long enough for him to mention it to the Seeker.) The decision ended up being made by simple acknowledgment of which section held the smallest amount of grayed frames to move.  
  
“Back end it is.”  
  
* * *  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some description of dead mechs, herein.
> 
> Also, thank you for the comments, kudos, and everything! :D I do appreciate them all! And it's looking to be an every three days update schedule, so look for the next chapter come Sunday.

One day passed. One very long, alien day that included three separate recharge sessions. He wasn’t entirely sure how long it actually lasted as he’d quickly discovered another victim of the crash had been his chronometer. Worse, he was no closer to figuring out how to fix the distress beacon than the moment he’d first found it. Skywarp scowled at the broken beacon and batted it aside with a disgusted swipe. There was no way it was going to work, too much of it was missing. He knew he should switch focus onto a better shelter or see if there was an emergency energon converter tucked away in the wreckage of the shuttle, but couldn’t bring himself to care at that particular moment. His ghost companion didn’t seem to mind sharing the tail end of the shuttle to get out of the brutally hot desert sun, at least.  
  
He looked over where the dead Autobot fiddled around with things in that back section. No doubt the heat of the desert sun was frying his brain module as there looked to be a small pile of energon cubes stacked to one side of the interior that hadn’t been there before. Skywarp grunted in disgust as his tanks groaned their increasing state of empty. He’d have to make a search of the shuttle for the real thing soon. If he relied on the stockpile of cubes collected by a ghost, he would die for the sheer fact that they didn’t actually exist. He could go longer without, _had_ gone longer without, and that experience left him with a few cubes stashed in his subspace at all times for emergencies. He wasn’t deep enough into an emergency state yet that he felt the need to crack one open, yet, though.  
  
Skywarp shook his helm as restlessness rose in him and shot to his pedes. He needed to get out of there, get into his own space. One without a dead Autobot roaming around. As he headed toward the edge of the wreck, Sideswipe called out to him.  
  
“You going somewhere?”  
  
With an annoyed flick of his wings, Skywarp wondered if he could get away without saying anything to the ghost. He didn’t know that he actually needed to, seeing as it was all in his head.  
  
“Skywarp?”  
  
Apparently, Sideswipe was going to be insistent. Stupid ghost. Skywarp growled at the lowest register of his vocalizer and barked out a reply. “I’m gonna scout the area. We’ve been here too long without doing it. Don’t expect me back anytime soon.”  
  
With luck, it would keep the ghost, real or not, from following him. He forced air though his vents to clear out as much sand as possible before launching himself into the sky, flipping into his alt mode. The grit of sand particles stuck in his seams made him hiss, but he dismissed the pain as bearable. As he gained altitude, his spark settled and his mind cleared. He shot through the alien sky, his innate coding mapping every bit of the landscape below him. Preliminary calculations quickly put the size of the planet at multiple times the size of Cybertron. Thus classified as a giant, he realized the desert might span far wider than he had the fuel to cross. His sensors were already starting to report it as such.  
  
“Slag,” he cursed under his breath, sweeping across the expanse of golden sand. He scowled at the low fuel warnings that popped up across his HUD again, swatting them down like cipher flies. He’d been lower and successfully participated in the full intensity of battle. This wasn’t going to get in his way, no matter how much his frame didn’t like it. He still had a bunch of fuel to burn through before he hit the level he was worried about, anyway. He marked his fuel gauge for a high priority alert before it hit fifty percent of what he had left, giving him a halfway point for his jaunt and more than enough to get back to the shelter. He didn’t want to get into his subspace stash before he absolutely had to. “Should follow the debris field, I guess,” he muttered to himself. “At least I stand a chance of finding something worthwhile that way.”  
  
He swooped into a hairpin turn, grunting at the drag created by the maneuver over his aching plating. It didn’t discount the waste of fuel he’d already made, but redirecting the rest of his running away from his red-plated problem on the ground might as well chance him finding a useful item or two. He pushed harder, his wings slicing through the air like a fully powered electroknife through a stick of solid churned energon.  
  
* * *  
  
The dark Seeker shot past overhead again, going the other way this time. Sideswipe snorted and shook his helm. “Hope he’s not being completely useless,” he said to himself, digging deeper into the supply closet he’d found mostly intact in the central section of the wreckage. It had taken what he figured was a couple Earth days once he found it to dig it out of the sand enough that he could get into it properly, a few handspans of movement of this planet’s sun through the sky. “Come on, closet, gimme something good.”  
  
Thus far, the closet was not cooperating. Not that he’d tossed aside any of the contents as unusable yet. Any of the cleaning supplies good for the shuttle was plenty good for a mech, for instance. Probably not up to Sunstreaker’s exacting standards, but it would keep joints lubricated despite all the sand and keep rust from forming around the increasingly large and unavoidable number of scratches. Being stuck in the middle of a vast desert made Sideswipe more than happy to keep himself functioning as best as possible. Especially considering how much work Jetfire had put into him. He was having terrible luck, however, finding what he most hoped to find—a portable energon converter.  
  
Normally, Sideswipe kept one in his subspace pockets, but his usual equipment had long since disappeared with his old frame. His long spell in the tube then being tucked away in Jetfire’s private domicile had amounted to him not having time or ability to replace any of it, either. His younger self—the Cybertronian equivalent of the ever-prepared boy scout—would be very disappointed in current him. Luckily, he’d found a good sized stack of cubes earlier and tucked them into the tail end shelter.  
  
When the closet refused to give up anything super amazing after several kliks more of digging, Sideswipe sighed and tossed a couple of thermal blankets over his shoulder toward his stack of scavenged items. Those were definitely a keeper, seeing as the brutality of a desert night would be on them again soon enough, but they weren’t the energon converter they needed. Turning a wary optic toward the other sections of the shuttle, he realized he was going to be forced to search among and likely _through_ the remains of the deceased. Dragging out the couple of grayed frames stuck in the tail section after choosing it for their shelter had been necessary, but he hadn’t looted them. He’d hoped to avoid it. Now it looked as if he was going to be checking _all_ of them.  
  
“Dammit,” Sideswipe muttered, heaving out a vent that puffed aloft the fine layer of dust and sand that accumulated everywhere. The thought of looting the dead did not sit well in his spark, all of it blending into hopelessness and despair. He’d shaken down more than enough gray frames throughout the war. He still ached from his frame transfer on top of the damages from the crash, a constant reminder of how close he’d come to being one of them. It didn’t matter that he didn’t know any of them. He didn’t know very many of them during the war, either. “This is not going to be fun.”  
  
First, though, a visit to the cockpit. As the second most intact section of the shuttle, Sideswipe hoped it held what he was looking for. Who knew, though? Skywarp hadn’t been very pleased with the slagged distress beacon he’d pulled out of it. Shoving up out of his crouch at the closet, all the sand and dust building in his joints caused a loud, scraping creak. A groan escaped his vocalizer as he straightened. “Frag… Now I know what Ratchet feels like.”  
  
Heading toward the nose section, trying not to move like an old mech, Sideswipe wished he had a clue where his cloak had gone. Rated for protection against the light of several suns, it would have been a welcome addition during his stretches of direct exposure. He was certain his paint had faded several shades by now. Fortunately, it was only short walk later when he shook the sand from his pedes as he stepped into the cockpit. Pushing the door Skywarp had dislodged farther out of the way, he paused and gave it a looking over. Other than needing the hinges repaired, it was in excellent condition. The wall it had been hinged on also remained fairly intact, he realized, rubbing one hand along the smooth surface. And it wasn’t as if the pilot or navigator needed it, anymore.  
  
Later, he thought, setting a memo to remind him as he took in the interior of the cockpit—the door and wall would be excellent to reuse on their shelter. At the controls, the pilot slumped forward over the console, crushed between it and nearly the back of the cabin from the crumple of the shuttle’s nose. Dull and dried energon streaked his gray plating and lay in flaked former puddles beneath him. On the other side, just as energon-drenched and perhaps even more of a horror show, the navigator barely maintained his seat. His bulky limbs were flung wide and his helm knocked clear off his shoulders by what looked to be a piece of the front hull. A chunk of that same hull plating pierced his grayed chassis, taking out most of his internals. Sideswipe shuddered and turned away from the slack frame.  
  
“What treasures are you guys still hiding in here, huh?” he asked the dead bots, forcing himself to begin shuffling through the contents of the cockpit. The landing had thrown it all into chaos, further disturbed by Skywarp’s pilfering. Shifting aside a small pile of scrap, Sideswipe nearly leaped out of his armor when an organic creature squealed at being relieved of its hiding spot. It threw itself in his direction, startling Sideswipe off balance. He landed on his aft with a crash against what remained of the cabin wall. Clutching a hand over his spark and staring after the vanished creature, Sideswipe vaguely noted that was the first bit of local fauna he’d actually seen. If that was the worst the planet threw at him, Sideswipe wouldn't complain.  
  
Settling himself with a slow vent of sun-heated air, he started brushing away the sand and dust that had accumulated under the scrap. He came across plenty of evidence the creature had been there a while. Wires chewed through by tiny teeth, organic waste materials, what looked to be the beginnings of a nest….  
  
“Gross,” Sideswipe grunted his disgust, wiping his hands along this thighs. Not that it would do him any good as he had no access to anything resembling a washrack out here. He didn’t think the supplies he’d found would be enough to make him feel clean after that—and he was enough like Sunstreaker that a scouring sand bath was completely out of the question, even if it wouldn’t just be asking for a case of rust. Shaking off the shivers, Sideswipe refocused on his task. He could always wipe his hands on Skywarp when the Seeker showed back up to make himself feel better.  
  
* * *  
  
Due to the nature of sand, landing in alt mode wasn’t happening, but even in root mode, it was no walk in the park. Coming down on the disturbed waves of sand, Skywarp stumbled as he came in faster than he should have, pedes catching on themselves and digging more trenches in the debris field. He cursed and growled at himself for such clumsiness—he was a Seeker and Seekers were better than that.  
  
Wobbling a bit as he walked, Skywarp sighed. His wings drooped nearly as much as his shoulders with the weariness he forcefully ignored. A quick scan of the area revealed absolutely nothing that might make his life easier. Nothing even remotely that looked like it might help with fixing the beacon or setting up a decent shelter. He wasn’t about to spend another recharge inside a section of the shuttle. Especially not with a dead Autobot making noise like a beached Earth whale on the other side of said section every time his shifted in his sleep. He really wished his imaginary Sideswipe had at least not chosen the best part of the wreck. Couldn’t he have waited to find his own spot until after Skywarp had staked his claim and forbidden all ghosts entrance?  
  
Scowling some more, Skywarp shoved the thoughts aside and continued his search of the debris field. His fuel tank bubbled and rolled as he leaned over, screaming unhappiness. Damn, he’d gotten soft. Nope, he told his systems. He wasn’t refueling until he hit absolute fumes because who knew how long he’d need to make his stash last?  
  
Giving the area a look, Skywarp noted he’d gone far enough from the wreck that the body of the shuttle was no longer in visible range. Not at standard optical magnification, anyway. Turning more attention to the debris field, though, he realized something. After the initial deep plunge into the atmosphere, the shuttle must have level out a good deal because, while devastating, the crash zone looked nothing like a nose-down impact crater. It was probably why so much of the shuttle had remained at least somewhat intact, despite the explosions that started the whole thing. How that led to only himself surviving instead of maybe most everybody? Primus only knew. “That is so above my pay grade,” he said, rolling his optics at himself. “There’s a reason I didn’t join the science division.”  
  
Leaving the discovery of that curious answer to someone more qualified than himself, Skywarp set about poking through the sand for anything that might have fallen from the shuttle. He tuned his sensors toward deeper detection, allowing for a good bit of depth from the surface, in case something managed to burrow underneath the disturbed sand. Unfortunately, nothing more than small bits and pieces came to hand immediately. As much as he was loathe to admit it, though, Starscream had forced persistence and patience into his processor.  
  
Pressing a hand against the golden glass of his canopy, Skywarp otherwise ignored the sudden tight pull on his spark at the thought of his former trine leader. That was the sort of emotion he didn’t do—it always bit him in the aft when he tried it. Before that petrorabbit hole could swallow him deeper, thankfully, his sensors finally beeped at him. Finding something useful was definitely much more important than stupid emotions.  
  
Shifting his pede back and forth to scuff a few centimeters of sand out of the way didn’t bring to light whatever was setting off his sensors. Of course that wasn’t going to be enough to find anything. He was never so lucky. Annoyed, Skywarp settled down on his knees and scooped at the the sand with a hand, grimacing as the tiny grains slipped into the delicate workings of this fingers. That was going to take more than a good shaking to get cleaned out. If he didn’t find anything good after doing this, he was going to— Well, he wasn’t going to hurt anyone because there was no one around to hurt other than himself and that wasn’t the sort of thing he was into, but he would probably demolish something. Like, rip it down to a few shreds of metal and whatever fibrous stuff it was made out of.  
  
“Come on,” he muttered at the soft ground. “I know there’s something here or it wouldn’t have set off my sensors like that.” His wings cocked back and twitched every now and then, a sure sign of his focus and growing agitation. Forever and always, he would remain Starscream’s worst student.  
  
Downward he dug, deeper by careful degrees. The sand remained dry and shifting, more spilling back into the hole than he managed to pile out of the way, leaving him clenching his dentae in frustration as he fought harder against the natural flow of the stuff. The beeping of his sensors intensified as he got closer to whatever they’d picked up. Skywarp shifted his focus from digging down to sifting through the sand with a finer touch. Whatever it was, he _had_ to be close to it. Finally an item revealed itself, small collection of wires, the ends shredded from whatever connections they’d made. He frowned at them and was just about to toss them aside, when another ping to his sensors put him to digging again. A little at a time along a several meters long trench, Skywarp slowly accumulated more bits and pieces. A decent sized pile of small bits of machinery and circuitry sat relieved of their sandy prison in one open palm when he sat back to get a crick out of his back.  
  
Skywarp frowned again at the bits and pieces, mouth curling to one side in a confused sneer. “What the frag is this junk supposed to be?” he asked of the open air around him. “Stupid sensors, picking up scrap.”  
  
He went to toss it all over his shoulder, but paused and gave them another look. They looked to be mostly intact, whatever they were for. “Aw, slag,” he said with a grunt, shoving them into a subspace pocket, instead. “Pretty sure Starscream would keep you, so that’s gotta count for something, right?”  
  
Finding nothing else at the bottom of the trench and writing off the squarish sheet of metal that pinged his sensors down just a bit farther as useless, Skywarp got back to his pedes and shook the sand from himself as well as he could. He checked his fuel gauge, quickly calculating he was still plenty good to continue his… whatever it was. Scavenger hunt, personal time, running away from the ghost of an Autobot that spent vorns trying to rip his wings off. Whatever.  
  
* * *  
  
Each time Sideswipe downed a cube of the scavenged energon, it made his search for a converter that much more urgent. He dispersed the empty cube and glanced at the sky through one of the large tears in the skin of the shuttle. The sun had only moved another handspan—_maybe_ a handspan and a half—since he last looked, but Sideswipe _knew_ that did not scan equal against Cybertronian or Earth units. The longer they were stranded here, the more apparent it became to him that his chronometer had gone wonky. Finally, though, his diligence paid off. Hidden midway among the debris of the cargo hold, the shuttle’s portable energon converter glinted in the broken shafts of local late afternoon sunlight like a sign from Primus. That last cube had been well-earned.  
  
Sideswipe wiped the back of one hand across his dusty cheek and stared at the device, waiting for it to disappear on him. Just in case. When it still remained after a klik, he slowly crept his way through the jumble of wreckage and occasional pieces of grayed frame. All his time as a front line soldier didn’t stop the squirming feeling in his tank of wrongness that blossomed with each limb he passed. Stopping in front of the pile that contained the converter, Sideswipe knelt down with a quiet creak in his knee joints. He grunted quietly at the flare of pain. He was going to apologize to Ratchet so many times for making fun of his creakiness when this was over. Leaning forward, he grabbed hold of the converter and tugged. It didn’t budge, held firm by the junk around it.  
  
“Of course,” Sideswipe said with a beleaguered sigh. “Nothing is ever easy.”  
  
He carefully knock away the debris cluttered on top of it, sorting the best items out as he went. One never knew when a random bit of wire or an only slightly damaged circuit board might come in handy. When he finally pulled the converter free, he dusted it off and turned it over in his hands, checking that at least most of it was intact. Wheeljack had happily spent a deca-cycle guiding him through the finer details of building a converter when Sideswipe had expressed interest many vorns ago. Thanks to that, he was more than capable of getting the device into working order, as long as none of the major components were missing—and it appeared they were all there and undamaged.  
  
His spirits lifted immensely, Sideswipe carefully held the converter against his chassis. He could finish digging after he got the converter working. Now that he’d found the converter, he was much more inclined to look for other buried riches. Like, maybe spare parts he could use for the converter if necessary and, possibly, his bag. But first, the converter.  
  
* * *  



	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said update on Monday, right? Yeah, Monday... XD

Skywarp slumped in absolute exhaustion against the face of the low cliff, out of the direct heat of the sun again. It was nice, finding a bit of shade so far away from the shuttle and his ghost problem. He’d stumbled across the rocky outcrop, rising out of the desert sudden and unexpected, not long after extending his search beyond the end of debris field. Not nice was making the dumbest decision he’d made in ages on discovering his warp drive no longer on lockdown. Idly poking at his systems while sitting in the shade, he’d been shocked to see the lock released. Skywarp leaped at the moment, ready to be himself again. He never paused to consider what sort of impact the crash might have had on it.  
  
The drive started up, sending a frisson of excited expectancy through him—   
  
…then clunked into a dead weight after consuming most of the energon still flowing through his lines.  
  
Now, in the afterward, his frame from wingtips to pedetips complained, yelling at him for attempting to use his sigma ability. It was entirely against the idea of moving, even just to get on his pedes again. The one upside to the whole thing was Starscream not being around to lambaste him. He was plenty fine being an idiot without anyone pointing it out to him.  
  
His vision was flooded with a fresh wash of low fuel warnings that wouldn’t go away no matter how he tried to force them. He hadn’t accounted for a possible bout of stupid decision making when setting his warning. He considered pulling out one of the cubes stashed in his subspace, just to top himself off a bit, to give his systems the idea that he was listening to them. If he didn’t consume them sparingly enough, however, they’d be gone and he’d be empty long before anyone found him on this planet. And without a working distress beacon, how much longer would it take a search crew this particular planet and the crash site? Skywarp snorted, unimpressed with his calculations. He scowled and gave in, pulling out a cube and cracking it open with not quite entirely eager hands. “Here’s to leaving an empty husk for whoever finds me,” he saluted, sarcasm flowing like a knick in a vital fuel line. “Not like anyone will miss a sorry sack of slag, anyway.”  
  
Chugging a large swig of energon, Skywarp eyed the shattered glass that covered a large circle of the sandy landscape nearby. He wasn’t entirely sure how, but his attempt to warp had superheated the sand and melted the surface layer of granules into a thin and sprawling sheet of glass. It near immediately turned into a wide pool of slivers and shards, though, when he recovered enough to move after his warp drive’s resounding failure. Tanks drained near completely, his thrusters hadn’t wanted to ignite, meaning his anti-grav was out of the question, forcing him to walk across the fragile surface. He’d picked up more glass in his seams than he wanted to think about in the process. With a grunt, he crossed one ankle over the opposite knee and carefully started plucking out more of the slivers that remained stuck. Each tiny piece tinkled as it clattered down the growing pile beside him. It would do him no good if they sliced through any lines or wires threaded through such a sensitive area.  
  
He scowled at a rather large shard as he yanked it from deeper in his thruster than he wanted to consider. “Maybe I should change my name,” he snarked at himself, flicking the glass away with an angry shake of his hand. It rattled across the width of the broken glass circle, glinting along various edges as it caught the sunlight. “Sky-_no_-warp is a bit more accurate at this point.”  
  
It wasn’t long before he gave up on finding more of the tiny glass pieces. Most would be ground into dust. The rest? They’d make themselves known, eventually. Skywarp stretched out his legs and slumped deeper against the cliff. He set his sensors on one last sweep of his surroundings, just in case. Nothing, nothing, and more nothing was all he got. Not even tiny pings came back to him that he hadn’t already come across and dismissed. He blustered out a sigh worthy of a combiner and slowly sipped at the rest of his cube. His handful of random parts were starting to look like the only thing worth the effort of digging up from the sand, if they were actually of any use at all.  
  
Picking up a small rock, he flicked it across the expanse of broken glass. “Should probably head back,” he muttered. “I’m fragging talking out loud to myself and I don’t even have a damn ghost to blame it on.”  
  
Hefting himself back to his pedes, Skywarp tipped back the last of the cube, fueled enough to do more than feel sorry for himself now. It was back to worst of war style rationing after this—just enough to keep himself out of stasis. A search crew would find him and he was going to be functional when they did, if only just barely. Damn, but he wished the stuff the dead Autobot scrounged up was real.  
  
Skywarp huffed the sand from his vents and threw himself into the sky, folding into his alt mode as he went, and trying not to think about how much faster it would be if he could just warp there.  
  
* * *  
  
Haphazardly returned to its hinges, the whole back wall of the cockpit welded to the ragged edges of the tail section, their shelter’s new door created a sense of safety that hadn’t quite been there before—he’d even managed to patch most of the holes in the walls. Sitting in the currently open doorway, Sideswipe fiddled with the energon converter as he’d been doing for most of his hours at that point. It had been in rougher shape than he’d initially decided, but it wasn’t unsalvageable.  
  
With a small wiggle, the last pin clicked into place and Sideswipe set the converter on the ground in front of him. There was plenty of daylight left for collecting given the obvious length of the alien day, he knew, but it didn’t matter if the converter wouldn’t even turn on. He took a glyph out of Drift’s datapad and sucked in a slow, steadying breath, holding it for a few nano-kliks before releasing it even slower. “All right,” he murmured, “here goes nothing.”  
  
Sideswipe knocked the power switch and waited. It made a few creaky noises, as if it were thinking hard about whether it wanted to work or not, then it clicked over and started to hum with the content sound of a machine happy with its lot in life. Giving a little fist pump, Sideswipe grinned and heaved himself to his pedes. He grabbed up the converter with enough care that he didn’t undo the slapdash repairs and headed out into the full force and heat of the remaining sunlight.  
  
Squinting against the brightness as he turned in the direction of the slow sunset, Sideswipe wished he’d opted for a built-in visor in this new frame. Maybe he could dig a pair up in the wreckage, he thought. It wasn’t as if the previous owner would need it now…. Shoving his moment of morbidity aside, he focused on finding an open spot nearby. Really, that was anywhere and he could have gotten away with just plopping it down wherever, but Sideswipe had spent more than enough time around the likes of Wheeljack and Perceptor to not at least attempt to position it correctly. He quickly gave up, though, when it all looked the same to him, settling the converter into the soft cradle of sand provided by the desert. At least he could tell people he tried to be science-y. He tweaked the angle of the panel a bit before stepping back and watching the small unit test its new power source.  
  
A tickle built in his intake as dust and sand kicked up in a small, out of nowhere breeze. He cleared his vents and watched the converter closely as it chugged away in the sunlight, already a quarter into filling a fresh cube. Sideswipe nodded, hands propped on his hips, proud of his accomplishment.  
  
With the converter taken care of, Sideswipe took a moment to wonder where Skywarp was. He’d enjoyed the quiet that came without the Seeker’s constant muttering, but he was starting to feel a touch of concern. Skywarp had been gone a rather long time. Eyeing the long, disturbed path through the sand, cranking his optical magnification as high as he could, Sideswipe searched for any sign of Skywarp returning. “You better not be dead, dumbass.”  
  
He frowned as a bit of sandy grit swirled around his face, the wind picking up a bit more. That was going to get annoying if it kept up.  
  
* * *  
  
As Skywarp flew back to the wreck of the transport shuttle, a large and oddly shifting mass appeared on the far horizon. He’d seen the like on other worlds, including Earth, and it never meant anything good. His fuel gauge still reading closer to empty than full, Skywarp pushed himself against the swiftly rising wing, thrusters coming on full and piercing the sky as he raced back toward the crash site. He was going to burn a lot more than he wanted to, but there wasn’t much time. That cloud would descended on him soon and the broken shell of the shuttle was a much better option than getting stuck in the incoming natural disaster—if only because he didn’t think he could outrun the beast about to be unleashed on the desert.  
  
“Slag it all!” Skywarp pushed harder to beat the billowing edge of the sandstorm to the crash site. This precursor to the full of the storm was bad enough to be flying nose first into—he didn’t want to try his luck against the interior of it! His sensors ran riot as they tracked the storm, screaming at him about the wobbly front of organic and mineral particles as he raced them toward the remains of the shuttle. The winds picked up more and more as he drew nearer, more than once threatening to toss him from the air for the sheer power of the eddies swirling around him. Once upon a time, he and his trine had flown these kind of storm winds for the fun of it. “I am so getting back in shape when this is all over!”  
  
The sand in the air increased with each nano-klik, scraping harsh and deep at his paint as the wind swirled it over his plating. Below him, the wreckage of the shuttle came into view, hidden behind a thickening haze of sand and dust. Skywarp transformed and flung himself at the ground, hissing as the billowing sand slipped through his seams as if they were wide open. He came in hard, grunting as the force of the landing cranked the cables and tensors in his right shoulder a bit farther than they were happy with. It was better than crumpling a wing, though, he thought as he pushed through to his pedes and set off for the back end of the shuttle at a run, dead Autobot waiting for him or not.  
  
Intent on tucking himself as deep into the surviving tail structure as he could, Skywarp got a moment of shock as he realized the open end had been closed off. The ghost had been busy in his absence. He decided to question reality later and grabbed the door, yanking it open to duck inside. Ready to pull it closed against the storm, his attention was caught by the flash of red armor bent down over something, still out in the rising sands.  
  
He hesitated, fingers curled around the edge of the door. Sideswipe was dead, he _knew_ that. But what if leaving his ghost out in the sandstorm killed him again? At least a ghost was some kind of companionship, even if it was imaginary.  
  
Cursing under his breath all over again, Skywarp shoved the door back open and dove out into the rising winds. “You stupid slagger!” he yelled at Sideswipe, catching him around the middle and dragging him into the shelter. “What the frag do you think you’re doing?!”  
  
The entirely solid frame of the dead Autobot grunted under his weight as they landed in a pile on the ground, then Sideswipe hunched his back upward and struggled to throw Skywarp off. “Would you get off me, you idiot?” he yelled. “I need to get back out there!”  
  
“No you fragging don’t!” Skywarp yelled right back at him, shifting this way and that to keep him pinned belly down. “Didn’t you notice the Primus-damned sandstorm almost right on top of us?!”  
  
A sharp elbow jabbed hard into a sensitive seam along his belly. Skywarp instinctively curled away from the offending joint before it could do any real damage. This, of course, gave Sideswipe all the chance he needed to escape.  
  
“Hey! Get back here!” Skywarp called after him, scrambling toward the door as Sideswipe slipped out. The red mech put real effort into pushing it open far enough to get around, a heavy swirl of sand and dust entering the small sanctuary proof the storm already edged over the wreckage of the transport shuttle. It slammed shut behind Sideswipe, Skywarp barely yanking his fingers out of the way before pushing it open again to peer outside, using all his weight against the wind that wasn’t playing games anymore. Whatever Sideswipe was doing, it couldn’t possibly be even remotely worth the effort of losing not only his paint but thickness from his plating to a natural sandblaster. “What the frag are you doing?!”  
  
The Autobot crouched down and scooped up something off the ground before turning back toward the little shelter and making a slow return against the swirling wind. “Get out of the way!” he yelled at Skywarp, arms curled around some contraption Skywarp couldn’t make out. “Let me back in, aftwipe!”  
  
Suddenly filled with sparkling disinclination, Skywarp hollered back at him. “Why should I?!” He put his weight into keeping the door open just wide enough to peek out. “I had you in here all safe and sound, then you forced your way back outside all on your own! I’d tell you to live with it, but hey! We know how _that_ goes!”  
  
“What?!” The look Sideswipe was giving him was decidedly confused and verging on angry. “Just open the damn door!”  
  
Skywarp released a wordless, blustering howl and gave in, the wind tugging and pulling at the door the whole time. “Fine!” he yelled, letting it open so that the dead Autobot could scamper inside with him again. “Don’t ever tell me I didn’t do anything for you!”  
  
Whatever Sideswipe was carrying, he set down to one side and turned around to help Skywarp secured the door against the whipping force of the scouring winds. “Don’t worry,” Sideswipe replied, no longer yelling as the sound of the sandstorm was cut significantly in the now closed off and dark space. “I didn’t plan on it whether you did or didn’t.”  
  
Skywarp sneered at him. “Aft.”  
  
The darkened space, the holes patched well enough only a few small puffs of dust and sand made it in, suddenly filled with light as Sideswipe flicked on a lamp powered by one of his fake energon cubes. Around them, the walls flexed under the force of the wind and sand, but the ugly welds held firm. Skywarp gave the locking mechanism Sideswipe had rigged up on the door a considering look—it was rather ingenious, the sort of thing he might have devised himself. Not that he intended to share that thought. He turned away from the door to watch the dead Autobot. Sideswipe was back to messing with whatever he’d gone back out to rescue, fiddling with buttons and knobs Skywarp couldn’t see with the still mostly red plated frame in the way.  
  
“What is that?” he asked, not quite sure what to do now that the storm was well and truly on them, trapping them inside together. He attempted peeking around Sideswipe, sighing when Sideswipe shifted in a way that hid the device from him all over again. He’d gotten a good enough look to hazard a guess, though. “Is that an energon converter? You found one?”  
  
Sideswipe gave him a quick glance over a shoulder. “Yeah, I’ve been working on it pretty much since you took off. Finally got it running, too, just before the storm hit.”  
  
Skywarp did his best not to get excited. A working energon converter fixed by a ghost was about as real as the ghost itself. Still, the idea of having a continuous, if small, supply of energon kind of made him a little giddy. No doubt it was just his processor reminding him this was another thing he needed to get busy on. And maybe a real shelter, too. As nice as his mind was telling him this one was, it was _also_ the handiwork of the dead Autobot. It probably didn’t even exist and he was, in reality, lazing in a near-empty daze on the sand, staring up into the storm as it raked the paint clean off his plating. Of course, the other option was that he was dead, too, and was being punished to live out his afterlife with only his personal nemesis for companionship. He shuddered.  
  
Honestly, Skywarp was ready for the whole thing to just be over, really. He sighed and found himself a corner to slump down into, intent on spending the rest of the storm in recharge for lack of anything else to do. Instead, he sat watching the converter chug away using whatever solar energy it had managed to store in its battery to create and fill cubes of energon as Sideswipe fussed over the sand-hazed panel.  
  
“Fake,” Skywarp muttered at the lowest volume setting his vocalizer allowed, arms crossed in petulance over his cockpit. “It’s all fake.”  
  
* * *  
  



	6. Chapter 6

The wind continued to blow, sand and dust seeping in around the edges of the makeshift door and occasional openings around the patches. Sideswipe wasn’t sure how long the storm was going to last—he wasn’t a weatherbot, by any means. Most of the time, he’d never paid much attention to the weather, at all. That was something more in Sunny’s bunkhouse. So, instead of worry about it, Sideswipe decided to spend the time focused on any damage energon converter might have taken in the excitement of the storm hitting. Most worrying was the scouring the solar panel had received as the sandstorm came on, but he had plenty of practice making things shiny and scratch-free again. It was one of the many things that came with being Sunstreaker’s brother.  
  
The converter hadn’t had much more than a few hours to gather power off the planet’s sun, but apparently it pulled in enough to fill a good number of cubes more than Sideswipe would have guessed possible. He set aside the fourth full cube and shook his helm as a fifth began filling. “Damn,” he said, looking at the growing stack of cubes. “Might have to ask one of the science bots if there’s something special about this particular star. The converter wasn’t out there very long to be giving this kind of output.”  
  
“What’s it matter?” Skywarp asked from his lonely corner of the shelter. His red optics flashed from the shadows that blended his mostly black frame into the dark. He’d chosen a spot mostly hidden from the lamp, like some sort of standoffish feline. “Not like they’re real anyway.”  
  
Sideswipe peeked over his shoulder at the former Decepticon and gave him a frown. He was really starting to get sick of all the weird things Skywarp had said to him from nearly the moment Sideswipe had first stepped onto the transport shuttle. Or even just the way Skywarp looked at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”  
  
And just like that, Skywarp closed his mouth again in a tight line and tuned him out. Sideswipe wasn’t sure why, but the ‘Con sure seemed to be actively ignoring him and everything he did, only tossing out strange comments when he could no longer help himself. Of course, things could certainly be worse, considering their history. Sideswipe was smart enough to consider himself lucky in that regard.  
  
Rolling his optics at Skywarp’s antics, Sideswipe turned back to the converter and nudged at the now half-full fifth cube. He wasn’t surprised when the converter finally slowed. It was already so far past what he’d expected, he was almost ready to just turn it off in case something was wrong with the machine. As the output fizzled with the last cube at approximately three-quarters full, Sideswipe grabbed the cube and switched off converter. He swirled the freshly generated energon around the partially filled cube, watching its behavior closely, and gave it a sniff.  
  
Pungent and thick, it was much more condensed in consistency than he’d seen or consumed in an energon in more vorns than he could count. Tentatively, he set the edge of the cube against his mouth and let a small sip pass over his glossa. He melted into the flavor, tangy and sweet, feeling the energy contained in the fuel start a slow and steady flow of power to his systems. If he had additives, Sideswipe didn’t know if he would have bothered to use them.  
  
“Oh, mech,” he said aloud, whether Skywarp would deign to give any sort of response or not. Sideswipe much preferred his own voice over silence. He turned around and lifted the partial cube in Skywarp’s direction. “Don’t know why or how, but this shit is primo grade. This is as premium as you can get without it being engex.”  
  
That didn’t get him a reaction other than Skywarp deepening his snub of Sideswipe. Annoyed by this to a depth he found ridiculous, Sideswipe settled for sipping a bit more from the cube and occasionally peeking the Seeker’s way. Eventually, after several kliks, he caught Skywarp giving him a look. While he wouldn’t call it curious, Sideswipe definitely felt he could slot it into the “interested” category. Skywarp, however, made a point of Not Looking again when he realized Sideswipe was watching.  
  
“Not interested, huh?” Sideswipe asked with a grin, sticking a finger into the thick and glowing liquid fuel. “Guess that just means more for me.” He waited a moment, then sighed when Skywarp looked away harder and ignored him more. “Damn, you’re a tough crowd.”  
  
He stuck his finger into his mouth and sucked the energon off. Skywarp had to be hungry, having not touched a cube to Sideswipe’s knowledge since… Sideswipe wasn’t exactly sure, really. He had to be operating on fumes by now. He’d give in soon enough. Not even Skywarp could be that big of an idiot.  
  
* * *  
  
When the dead Autobot offered him a taste of the obviously not real energon—so thick and gooey and tasty-looking—Skywarp could only be glad for the fact that he’d sucked down that cube before streaking back to the crash site. The flight had used up a good portion of it, but not nearly enough to leave him seeking another top off just yet. In fact, he was so good he simply shifted his gaze away and stared at the locked door that blocked out the vast majority of the raging sandstorm.  
  
Another massive gust shook the small shelter he shared with the ghost and imaginary fuel, leading to him curling tighter around himself and tucking his helm down against his knees. If he could have folded his wings down against himself right then, Skywarp knew he would have taken advantage of the ability. Making a smaller target of himself would make him safer should the locking mechanism on the door give way or, worst case scenario, the walls, right?  
  
Honestly, though, was it fair for the dead guy to treat him this way, tease him with something that didn’t exist, after he saved the guy’s life? However that worked.  
  
Skywarp groaned and pushed his helm deeper into the hollow formed by his curled arms. He’d touched a dead guy. And not just any dead guy—which, as a participant of a far too long war, he’d touched a lot of dead guys—but a _ghost_ dead guy. What had he been thinking? Obviously, he realized, he hadn’t been. Given a chance to go back and redo it, Skywarp told himself he’d definitely not touch the ghost, solid though he might have felt. The stories talked about ghosts sometimes being able to be corporeal like that so it didn’t make him any less of a ghost. And wouldn’t Starscream be impressed that he knew that word? Corporeal.  
  
Starscream who was _also_ now a ghost, if the yellow minibot was to be believed, anyway. The yellow minibot that used to be dead and a ghost not so long ago, himself, according to Starscream before he became a ghost. So many stories that were hard to believe, but not that hard—Skywarp was trapped in a makeshift shelter in the middle of an alien sandstorm with a well-known-to-be-dead Autobot, after all.  
  
He risked a glance toward Sideswipe and watched the way he sucked at his fingers and licked at the thick energon that had slipped into his seams. Skywarp scowled and ignored the gurgling protest in his fuel tank, dismissing the returning warning pings on his HUD regarding his low levels again. No more flying like he’d done to get back here, he swore. His stash wasn’t high quality and was smaller than he wanted to think about. If he wanted to last until help came, however long it took, he was going to have to curtail his activities as much as possible.  
  
The shelter rumbled and shuddered around them as the winds kicked up even more, buffeting the curving sides of the repurposed tail section this way and that. Skywarp wasn’t sure, but if certainly felt like the whole thing shifted across the sand when the strongest of the gusts hit. He could hear the sand grinding against the surface of the outer plating, no doubt leaving little color on the surface as the sand dug into the metal. As long as it wasn’t blasting _his_ frame, Skywarp wasn’t concerned. Let it scour the entire wreck clean as long as what was left of his own paint job remained intact.  
  
“This sucks so hard,” he muttered, burying his face into his arms again. All he needed now was to wake up and find it was all a dream like some stupid human movie. Thundercracker would probably want to write about it if Skywarp told him. He made a note to remind himself not to tell the weirdo slaghead and flagged it high priority. His life was not up for a script treatment.  
  
* * *  
  
The lamp still glowed, using such a small amount of energon to power itself that it had consumed only a couple finger widths of the fuel since Sideswipe turned it on, however long ago that was. Sideswipe stopped bothering to check his chronometer after he realized it just wasn’t going to start reading correctly on its own. He even stopped attempting to nudge Skywarp into reacting, eventually. Neither was turning out to be a proper way to waste his time, the storm raging on for longer than Sideswipe wanted to consider and Skywarp seemingly intent on letting himself go empty. Instead, Sideswipe turned his attention to the converter.  
  
The thick energon it was giving definitely had a place in his world, in the long run, though, a thinner distilling ran better through the average bot’s frame. If either Skywarp or himself was ever seen by a medic again, they’d get their afts reamed for the sticky deposits the thick stuff would leave behind in their fuel lines. And Skywarp would definitely be there, whether he wanted it or not right now. Sideswipe wasn’t going to let the idiot Seeker do anything stupid because, as much as Sideswipe disliked being stuck with him, he wasn’t about to let the guy deactivate and leave him alone with a bunch of bodies.  
  
Converter settled in his lap, Sideswipe fiddled with a few connections and played with the settings. The converter didn’t appear upset with any of it, thankfully, when he ran a test charge through it. The last thing he wanted to do was cause a short he couldn’t fix. As he set the converter back down, wondering if it had enough juice left to actually test the new settings, the shelter took a hard hit from something in the storm. The shelter shook and creaked, already weakened seams threatening further dissolution under the assault.  
  
Coughing at the extra streams of windblown dust and sand that billowed in through those growing cracks, Sideswipe set a hand atop the converter and eyed the inside of the shelter. There wasn’t much he could do to stabilize it with what was inside the small space. He was lucky that the slabs of hull plating standing in as a front wall hadn’t been completely blown away in the initial gusts of the storm. He wasn’t _that_ good of a welder. Another gust wobbled the structure dangerously—if this kept up much longer, he was pretty sure they’d lose what protection the section of trashed shuttle offered them.  
  
“Don’t let me down,” he murmured, thumb wavering over the power switch of the converter for lack of anything better to do as the wind and biting sand continued without falter. “We’ve gotten along pretty well this far, so don’t you dare decide to be funny and crap out on me now.”  
  
He glanced Skywarp’s way when the Seeker shifted and gave him a look. Sideswipe had no clue what it meant. Skywarp, for all that Sideswipe had been in the Seeker’s presence for at least a couple orns now, was an absolute mystery. Before he could consider the Decepticon further, though, a loud thump landed against the side of the shelter, shaking it harder the ever, letting in even thicker billows of the swirling sand and dust.  
  
“Dammit!” Sideswipe cursed, scowling and taking a position much like Skywarp’s. He wrapped his frame around the energon converter, intent on keeping the device safe in the chance that the shelter completely gave out on them. It was the one thing they could _not_ lose. “I will totally take up construction if we make it through this shit. Swear to Primus!”  
  
Another thump hit the opposite side of the shelter, this time followed by a thunderous screeching that sounded far too organic and living to Sideswipe for his own comfort. It dragged along with a shriek of claws and scraped metal across the roof before coming in from yet another angle. In his little corner of the shelter, Skywarp shrank himself even smaller as Sideswipe watched, those dark wings of his twitching and shivering with unmistakable fear. Sideswipe didn’t blame him one single bit, though he did find it concerning that Skywarp allowed it to show at all, let alone around him. And again, a thump and the howling and tearing reverberated through the shelter, the whistling of the wind and scraping of the sand only heightening the eerie and fear-inducing nature of the situation.  
  
Sideswipe scuttled away from his spot as something large slammed against the wall directly outside where he sat, rumbling as if a flurry of blows were being rained down on it. He didn’t stop moving until he backed into Skywarp and tumbled down nearly on top of him.  
  
Wailing hands slapped and pushed at Sideswipe as Skywarp threw curses and insults at him. “You slagging filthy Autobot scrapheap! Don’t touch me!” He shoved harder. “Stop invading my space!”  
  
“Would you shut up, already!” Sideswipe hollered back, “I didn’t do it on purpose, asshole!” In a flailing pile of limbs, Sideswipe worked to get disentangled. It was mostly Skywarp’s active pushing that threw him off, the blustering and insults continuing to fly. “You can shut up, seriously,” Sideswipe said, shoving a hand across Skywarp’s face. “I’m not on you, anymore, dumbass.”  
  
“Then stop touching me,” Skywarp growled back at him, clawing at Sideswipe’s hand and shoving it away from him. Once the words slowed down, Sideswipe easily saw them for the attempts deal with the stress of the situation. The level of stress Skywarp was exuding, though, made Sideswipe hope he didn’t burst a coolant line.  
  
_BAM! BAM! BANG!_ Sideswipe yelped and flung himself against Skywarp again, this time very much on purpose, as yet another round of pounding pummeled the sides of the shelter, circling around them. A patch screeched as the wind and battering peeled its weld clean away from the hull plating, disappearing into the raging storm.  
  
“This is so stupid!” Sideswipe shouted over the increased howl of the wind. Enough cracks and holes were opened and widened in the plating of their little section of the shuttle that things weren’t nearly so muffled as they had started out. He held the converter tighter against his chassis, cradling it as close as he could under the assault of the storm and the collisions with Skywarp. “I am so done with this!” he yelled some more. He shot a hard look over his shoulder at Skywarp. “Are you done with this?! Because I am _so_ done!”  
  
It wasn’t much of a surprise that Skywarp only glared and shoved him hard again. “Get the frag off me, you glitch!”  
  
That was enough to make Sideswipe laugh. He swatted at the ‘Con and grinned, flinching when their shelter groaned and creaked some more, but no more thumps and bangs happened. “Get over it, Skywarp. You’re stuck with me until somebody finds us.”  
  
“…if,” Skywarp muttered just loud enough for Sideswipe to hear over the fierce wind and scraping sand.  
  
“Yeah,” Sideswipe agreed, his humor dampening and his shoulders slumping. He sighed and leaned back against a protesting Skywarp, ignoring the continued pushing and shoving. “Things keep going like this, you might be right.”  
  
They flinched together as another heavy bang hit the side of the shelter.  
  
* * *  
  



	7. Chapter 7

Sideswipe woke to a face full of bright sunlight, the sky blue and clear… and the sand all once again laying on the ground where it should be. It took far too long for him to process exactly what that meant. Once it hit, though, he quickly rushed through a cube and headed out to assess the damage. He needed to check what was salvageable and get busy putting it to use—there was a lot to get done so they didn’t get caught with their afts hanging out like that again. Leaving Skywarp where he lay beside him, in a dead but restless sleep, Sideswipe headed out into the glorious sunshine with full intentions of getting the day started.  
  
His plans were waylaid, though, by the horrific smell that hung over the crash site. Why it hadn’t hit him inside what remained of their shelter, he didn’t know, but stepping out the door left him gagging and only barely keeping down his breakfast cube. It was bad enough that it took him longer than necessary to recall he could filter at least the worst of it from his nasal receptors. Looking around, he saw organic bodies littering the ground around the broken shuttle. Ripped and torn by the sandstorm, flesh had been scoured from bones where it wasn’t rotting under the return of the desert sun. Sideswipe tried burying them, initially, but the sand didn’t cooperate, throwing the corpses back to the surface as the sand shifted and burrow-dwelling creatures surfaced to seek them out for food. Eventually, Sideswipe just gave up and left it all as it lay.  
  
Now, watching the energon converter chug away under the bright light of the midday sun—he wasn’t going to wonder how long the movement of the sun translated to, anymore—Sideswipe considered their supply of fuel. After shrinking considerably over the course of the storm, if only through his own use because Skywarp hadn’t touched it, it was growing again. The little device’s solar panel repaired as best Sideswipe could manage, putting out as close as it could to full strength. In fact, the stack of cubes was grown big enough already that the rickety remains of the shuttle’s tail end barely contained it all. If both he and Skywarp continued to use it as their shelter, that was _not_ going to work. If they wanted protection from any future storm for themselves and the energon cubes, Sideswipe knew a new shelter needed to be moved higher on their list of priorities again. Judging from the size of some of the organic corpses, better protection against he wildlife was definitely on the table, as well.  
  
He headed out to the edges of the crash site and began scouting with an optic for placement. Just like the first time he’d looked, nothing in the immediate area beyond the wreckage itself stood out as any sort of cover from the elements. They were in what had to be the emptiest area Sideswipe had ever seen outside of the reset Cybertron. Sideswipe sighed, knowing that gave him all of two options: one, head out farther into the wild or, two, build something with what they had at hand. Frankly, the second option was the only one worth considering right then. If they didn’t get themselves rescued within a reasonable amount of time, they could relocate later.  
  
Choosing a spot mostly at random to one side of the downed shuttle, Sideswipe mapped out a space that would give them both a good amount of room and leave plenty of extra for energon storage. Maybe it might be a bit much for something that was likely to be incredibly temporary, but it wasn’t like there was much else to do in Sideswipe’s opinion. First up, excavating a trench to give the shelter a chance at decent stability with the materials available. He was greatly thankful to remember an emergency shovel set aside supplies he’d wrangled from the former cargo hold. Also, he was kind of perturbed he hadn’t found the shovel before trying to bury the bodies of the local wildlife. Oh well, such was life, especially his. He’d given up on the burying, anyway, and wasn’t in the mood to change his mind.  
  
Wiping away the sand clinging to the handle, Sideswipe began a slow walk around the spot he’d picked. He might not have been Hoist, Grapple, or even a Constructicon, but he’d worked long enough with the Autobot engineers that he could make _something_ happen. It might not be the most elegant structure in the universe, but he’d make sure it wasn’t going anywhere when another sandstorm decided to blow through their section of the desert.  
  
Sideswipe gave the sleeping ‘Con another look through the still open door, found him not even a small bit moved from the last time he peeked over. He ignored the niggle of worry at the back of his thoughts and instead focused on his self-appointed task.  
  
* * *  
  
The sound of deep, repetitive scraping should have kept him deep in recharge. He’d always slept better with noises like that in the back of his mind. It didn’t this time, though. As his frame caught up on rebooting all the systems and programming that had gone haywire over the last however long, Skywarp blinked his optics on and stared blankly at a wall. His wings gave a slow and gentle flutter as he considered the wall. It was partially collapsed and half-buried under a building pile of sand. The sky he saw through the open hole in the wall, at least, was no longer a painful and dangerous swirl of abrasive granules. He perked a bit as that filtered through his brain module. The storm was over. When it died down, he didn’t know or care. It was just enough that it was done.  
  
Outside, the scraping continued. He frowned at the fog of exhaustion that clung to him and cautiously uncurled himself from his sleep, rolling to sit upright and rub the recharge from his optics. Once his frame settled into the new position, Skywarp shifted to peek outside through a large hole in the side of the shelter in the direction the scraping was coming from. It was Sideswipe, dead as he was, digging in the sand like some kind of sparkling. Skywarp couldn’t begin to guess why.  
  
“Ugh,” he groaned, rubbing the heels of his palms over his shuttered optics. “I don’t wanna talk to the dead guy to find out what he’s doing. Don’t make me do that, Primus.”  
  
He watched for a short while longer, curious to see where his imagination might take the scene. It bored him rather quickly, though, as Sideswipe simply continued digging, pausing every once in a while to cycle air through his ventilation system and sip from an open cube. Skywarp’s tank pinged sharp distress at him, watching each swallow of energon. He ignored it. He’d cracked open a cube during the storm, sipping only a very little here and there, no more than enough to give his insides a thin coat of fuel. He turned away from Sideswipe when the ghost had stared at him, shortly thereafter stuffing the partial cube back into a subspace pocket. He didn’t like being watched while he ate. It was creepy.  
  
Checking on Sideswipe again, Skywarp quickly turned his optics the other direction when Sideswipe looked his way. He was pretty sure Sideswipe didn’t believe for a nano-klik that he hadn’t been looking. It made Skywarp feel better to pretend his staring had gone unnoticed, though. Skywarp groaned at himself and slapped his hands against his face, dragging them downward until his fingertips caught at his jaw before falling away. His logic center was tripping over itself with the nonsense that filled his brain module and he knew it. Shaking his helm to rid himself of the thought pattern, Skywarp stumbled to his pedes and sought out something to do that would take him away from the ghost. The ghost that shrugged Skywarp’s strangeness off and continued to dig in the alien sand as if _Skywarp_ were the one that was weird and unexplainable.  
  
Deciding it wasn’t worth the effort of thinking about too deeply, Skywarp made a break toward the rest of the wreck. Maybe with in the aftermath of the storm he might find something newly revealed. Before he got far, though, Skywarp tripped over the broken distress beacon. He frowned at it, nudging it with the toe of one pede. It didn’t give him any indication that it disliked the treatment or otherwise, lights remaining dark and unresponsive. Meaning, it wasn’t much different than it had been before the scouring it obviously received in the sandstorm. Skywarp sighed and reached down to pick it up, wings flicking distractedly behind him.  
  
“Guess I can give another shot at letting everyone know where to find my body,” he grumbled, stuffing the beacon under his arm and wobbling through the sand toward a shuttle seat sat out under the sun. It was uncomfortable, divested of any cushioning it may have had by the storm, but better than flopping down in the sand. The familiar sound of an energon converter at work drew Skywarp’s attention back toward the shelter. The machine looked to be working better than he’d ever seen a little portable converter ever do. More proof than he needed that it was all fake. It couldn’t churn out energon cubes like that without sending itself to the Pit in short order. He tossed an angry glare at his unwelcome company. Even if it _was_ a real and working converter, it was haunted now and Skywarp wasn’t about to touch something that was haunted, not willingly. Stupid dead Autobot.  
  
* * *   
  
Leaning against the handle of the shovel as he took a break, Sideswipe glanced toward his fellow castaway again. He rolled his optics on finding the ‘Con fiddling once more with the remains of the distress beacon. It wasn’t a lost cause, he was sure, but Skywarp obviously didn’t know the first thing about fixing broken electronics, despite _being one_ himself. He offered a wide grin and a wave at the suspicious glare Skywarp pinpointed him with, laughing when the Seeker jolted upright, wings spread wide like an Earth cat making itself look big in a defense display. He followed it by awkwardly shifting the seat he was using to face the other direction, obviously done with Sideswipe’s scrap.  
  
Sideswipe snorted—he was used to that kind of reaction—and hefted the shovel over his shoulder, heading back toward their barely standing shelter. It was time to check on the energon converter, see how it was getting along. Sideswipe was plenty willing to put off rebuilding a more stable shelter for a few kliks to put his efforts into checking the converter wasn’t going to die on them. Digging all that sand out of the way was hard work.  
  
He crouched down beside the converter where it chugged away, solar panel following the fantastically slow progression of the alien sun. The stack of fresh cubes it had filled was growing nice and big. He nodded, pleased, then focused on the converter itself. Poking at a loose wire, Sideswipe narrowed his optics in thought and leaned in closer to the device. It worked more than fine the way it was, but he knew he could finagle more out of it than the original designer had in mind. He wasn’t full-on engineer material, but he could make final products work better than intended. And making it work better than intended was something he fully intended to do—if he had to spend the rest of his functioning on a planet with no more companionship than the likes of Skywarp and the local wildlife, he was not doing it completely sober. He turned the converter off once it finished filling the newest cube, which he added to the stack.  
  
“Hm….” He nudged the converter to give him a slightly better angle. The control face was entirely too simple to understand his needs. This was going to take a little more ingenuity. Opening the box and pulling the internals loose, he popped a couple of wires free and resituated them into a different configuration. He could only hope it worked rather than fried the whole thing. It looked a lot like other converters he’d played with in the past, but that didn’t mean it was the same. “Let’s give this a shot, shall we?”  
  
Pushing the power button, Sideswipe sat back in the sand and let the device decide whether it wanted to work with the alterations or not. The small but powerful solar panel came to life and began drawing on the sun with tremendous speed, swiftly collecting the energy output of the local star with an even more robust speed. That hadn’t been precisely what he was going for, but he’d take it. As long as the converter didn’t burn itself out, an even bigger stash of energon didn’t hurt either him or Skywarp. Pursing his lips in thought, Sideswipe twisted a couple knobs and nudged a few settings he was pretty sure regulated formulation. He watched with practiced optics as the smooth flow of liquid energon took on a different hue.  
  
* * *  
  
Skywarp finally figured out how to completely dismiss the low fuel warning that had been on his aft worse than Starscream. He’d take care of his tank later. It wasn’t like he was going to forget it or anything. His fuel tank was plenty good at tinging and gurgling at him all on its own, anyway. Glancing down at his middle, he hissed at where the tank was placed. “I’ll give you another sip or two out of that cube later. Just not while spooky is watching. You know I hate when people watch me eat.”  
  
He thumped his belly and peered across the way to see that Sideswipe was up to. He’d been checking off and on, even after forcefully turning away from him. It was entirely reasonable for Skywarp to keep an optic on the dead guy. He wasn’t about to let a ghost get the jump on him in the middle of the day. That would seriously ruin his total badaft reputation—not that anyone was around to know his reputation was in peril. Sideswipe appeared quite intent on the converter now, probably taking a break from the digging. He’d messed with the internals and gotten the little machine working even better and putting out something that looked suspiciously more concentrated than standard mid-grade. That… took some knowhow, he grudgingly acknowledged.  
  
Glancing down at the beacon, still a tangled mess of loose wires and circuit boards pulled from their case, Skywarp wondered if maybe he should do something he never did and ask for help. Even from a dead guy that was probably just a figment of his imagination, a little help couldn’t hurt at this point because he certainly wasn’t getting anywhere on his own.  
  
“There goes my reputation,” he muttered, shifting around on his seat to watch Sideswipe more obviously. “Hey—”  
  
* * *  
  
“—what are you doing?”  
  
So focused on his task he barely recalled he wasn’t alone for a moment, Sideswipe nearly jumped out of his plating. He calmed his pulsing spark with a hand thumped soothingly over it before answering. “I’m making moonshine,” he said he told the Seeker. He paused and tilted his helm and peeked up at the sun, amused as a thought filtered through his processor. “Or I suppose you could call it sunshine, if you really wanted, considering.”  
  
He felt a smattering of pride as Skywarp—while still obviously unnerved to acknowledge Sideswipe’s presence—barely contained a snicker. It carried the worrying taint of hysteria, though. Then he went quiet again, but the expression on his face made it pretty obvious he was considering saying something more. Skywarp got to his pedes and made his way across the space between them, plopping down near the converter and setting the beacon in front of himself. Making a show of roughing up the exposed internals, Skywarp looked almost more like he was trying to bring attention to it rather than actually trying to fix it.  
  
Heaving another sigh through his vents, Sideswipe rolled his optics and let the converter do its work. It was running slower, he noted—probably in response to making what he hope was a good caliber high grade fuel. He watched as the smooth trickle of energy heavy energon fell into the fresh cube. He’d stop it for a sip before it filled much further, curious to test the flavor after having been surprised at the other grade tests. Turning where he sat in the sand, he watched Skywarp mutter and curse at the beacon for a bit before biting the bullet being shoved in his face. “Say,” he said, keeping it nonchalant as possible, “you don’t happen to need any help with that, do you?”  
  
“Nope, I don’t,” Skywarp responded, quicker than Sideswipe expected. He definitely wanted help.  
  
Sideswipe watched Skywarp work a little while longer, frowning as the Seeker tugged too hard on a wire, a move that definitely would _not_ be helpful in getting the beacon to work again. Those dark plated hands were a lot shakier than Sideswipe was comfortable with, as well. He shot a look toward the stack of cubes sitting beside him—the stack Skywarp seemed to do his best to ignore the existence of. Sideswipe couldn’t quite parse that, not entirely sure what the reason for it might be. “You want a cube?”  
  
“No.” Terse and abrupt. Skywarp didn’t even look in his direction. Sideswipe suddenly wished he could find a datapad somewhere, even loaded with something Prowl or Ultra Magnus might like. It would be a lot more diverting than trying to get some sort of entertainment out of the oddly taciturn Seeker.  
  
“Fine, starve. I don’t care,” Sideswipe told him, idly dragging the tip of a finger through the sand at his side. “Just don’t blame me when you fall over empty because there’s no way you have enough of a stash left on you last much longer.” He huffed amusement at the growl Skywarp directed at him, shoving the beacon at Sideswipe before getting to his pedes and stalking away.  
  
Oh, yeah. Definitely wanted help.  
  
* * *  
  
  



	8. Chapter 8

Half a planetary day had passed since the end of the unending sandstorm and dealing with the unsteady presence of his fellow stranded mech was more than enough for Sideswipe to realize he really, really didn’t like Skywarp. Not just as a former enemy combatant, but as a person. On a personal level. He grumped and grouched and he looked at Sideswipe like he expected something weird to happen.  
  
“Can’t fragging believe this,” the Seeker muttered as he dragged a large sheet of hull plating toward a stack he’d been compiling all morning. He seemed to have decided a new shelter was also a top priority all on his own, much to Sideswipe’s relief. It would certainly help along _his_ efforts. “Stuck on a desert planet like some nitwit in one of TC’s human stories. How bad is my life that I’m Primus damned trope now? And I _hate_ that I know that word!” He dropped the sheet on top of the pile with a loud crash, the force of it resulting in a billow of sand and dust in all directions.  
  
Sideswipe coughed to clear his vents as the cloud rolled over him, drawing Skywarp’s attention to him once again.  
  
“Oh, great!” Skywarp exploded in his direction, throwing his hands upward in a helpless gesture. “You’re still here. Even better.” He dropped his hands back down by his sides and stalked back over to the largest section of the wreckage, leaving Sideswipe to stare after him, watching those wide black wings flick in abject irritation.  
  
Shaking his helm and giving another small cough, Sideswipe didn’t bother trying to follow after him. Skywarp was better avoided at this point, seeing as he was grouching along like Ironhide woken too early from a nap. Even though Skywarp took top prize, though, Sideswipe understood he wasn’t entirely without fault, either. _Both of them_ were getting cranky with each other.  
  
He groaned and set the shovel aside, rubbing his hands over his face in his fatigue. Giving his trench a look—it was just about ready to go, he figure, he listened to Skywarp continue muttering on the far side of the shuttle wreckage. Sideswipe didn’t know how hard Skywarp was rationing energon consumption, but it was definitely harder than Sideswipe was. Even though their supply was currently well-stocked, it didn’t hurt to not go electro hog wild. He wondered just how much Skywarp had left in his private stash, pretty sure it couldn’t be much at all.  
  
Snorting a laugh at the sound of a stumble and another round of cursing, Sideswipe looked toward the dismantled distress beacon sitting near the converter. The Seeker hadn’t touched the beacon since yanking the innards loose and griping that none of it made any sense. Of course, he’d meant for Sideswipe to take over, but Sideswipe hadn’t wanted to check the amount of damage Skywarp caused yet. Skywarp might well have put it completely beyond saving, by either of abilities, with the way he’d been handling it. Sideswipe didn’t think his spark could take that kind of disappointment, but the longer he put it off, the longer they might be stuck if it _was_ fixable. Tapping his fingers where they held onto the shovel handle, he grunted and made the big bot decision. “Time to stop being a sparkling, I guess.”  
  
Glancing in the direction Skywarp had disappeared again, Sideswipe listened for any sign that he was headed back with another sheet of the hull plating. Nothing. Whatever he was up to, Skywarp definitely wasn’t returning yet. Sideswipe shrugged, headed toward the old shelter and leaned the shovel up against the side. With an eye for loose pieces, he started gathering up the parts of the dismantled beacon. It wasn’t a large device, but Skywarp had made a huge mess of it. As he started organizing the bits, a loud crash came from the front section.  
  
Sideswipe’s protective instincts lit up like a spotlight, former Decepticon status of his only companion be damned. “Skywarp?” he called, dropping the wires in his hand to the ground, scooting around the edge of the shuttle to take a peek. “Everything all right over here?”  
  
He cycled his optics wide when he discovered the dark plated Seeker leaning against the side of the shuttle, forehelm pressed against the atmosphere-burned hull. Those red optics of his were offlined and his vents heaved with a curious rattle, wide wings drooped low and lethargic. A large sheet of recovered plating lay on the ground near his pedes, obviously dropped, a scrape on the side of the nose section and along Skywarp’s shin showing where it hit on the way down.  
  
“Skywarp?” Sideswipe tried again, quickly making his way closer, but stopping short of actually touching the other mech. His hand faltered at the edge of a wing in a way it never had on the battlefield. He knew what this was. He’d been through it before himself, more than once, and had his aft reamed for it by a number of medics. “When was the last time you fueled up? And I mean _really_ fueled up?”  
  
Static and odd chirps were the first response Skywarp managed, but he rebooted his vocalizer as he turned dim optics on Sideswipe with a scowl. “Doesn’t really matter to you, does it?”  
  
“It does when it’s leaving you in this sort of shape, you dumbaft,” Sideswipe told him, hands itching to grab hold of the Seeker and get him settled down somewhere with a cube. If he had to, he’d guilt the idiot into drinking it. He leaned against the side of the shuttle’s remains and peered intently at Skywarp’s downturned face. The fine plating at the outer corner of his optics was wrinkled and the bridge of his nose furrowed tight. His mouth was slack and his ventilations hard, quick puffs. “Look, I don’t expect you to fill your tank to the top, but you need to keep yourself fueled up more than _this_. You’re no good to either one of us if you end up collapsing in a heap because you’ve run empty. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have any desire to be stuck here alone.”  
  
“Because you’re a weak Autobot,” Skywarp shot back, his tone scathing despite the strain on his vocalizer. “Just back off and leave me be.” From the way he gripped a tight fist against the side of the shuttle, is was pretty obvious he was resisting raising a cannon as if he actually had the energy to fire it. “Don’t make me waste what energy I’ve still got. Besides, I couldn’t get much more alone than this.”  
  
Sideswipe narrowed his optics. Honestly, Skywarp was starting to remind him of himself in more ways than he wanted to think about. “What is wrong with you? Are you really this self-sabotaging? Have you always been this way?”  
  
“Ugh, why are you like this?” Skywarp groaned, helm shifting with a small shriek of metal on metal as he looked directly at Sideswipe. His red optics were not only dim, but showed marked amounts of flickering when viewed head on.  
  
Spark flipping in its casing, Sideswipe immediately gave up any pretense of trying to talk him into coming of his own volition. He caught hold of Skywarp’s hand and dragged him toward their stockpile of energon cubes. Skywarp protested the entire way.  
  
“Don’t touch me!” he howled, struggling with almost nonexistent strength to tug out of Sideswipe’s hold. Sideswipe didn’t listen, but was deeply concerned at the terror that edged the words and the weak efforts to pull away. Those wide black wings flapped and buffeted him with a continued burst of air, like a sparkling doing all he could to escape a threat, slow and ineffective. The red optics were cycled wide and flickering dangerously as the sudden panic drained what energy Skywarp still had.  
  
“Stop it!” Sideswipe shouted back at him, catching hold of Skywarp’s other hand and physically sitting him down on the nearest scavenged seat. He set his hands on Skywarp’s shoulders and leaned in over him to _keep_ him sat down. Skywarp avoided his gaze, his frame starting to shiver under Sideswipe’s grip. “Hey, Skywarp. I’m going to go grab you a cube and you’re going to drink it, all right? All of it. Then you and me, we’re going to talk about what the fuck is wrong with you. You okay with this?”  
  
Skywarp scowled as he answered with a hard and succinct, “No, I’m not okay with this.”  
  
Shifting his weight from one pede to the other, Sideswipe sighed and shook his helm. The mech was exasperating. “Fine. You’re not okay with it. Will you do it, anyway?”  
  
He got a brief peek from those flickering optics as Skywarp seemed to settle under his hands. “You’d just force me if I didn’t. I know what you Autobots are like. If you don’t try to kill me, you try to fix me. You guys got no in between.”  
  
Sideswipe allowed himself a cautious smirk and shrugged with one shoulder, straightening up and letting Skywarp free. He was pleased when the Seeker didn’t attempt to rise from the seat he’d been shoved into. “Got me there,” he said as he stepped over to the stack of energon cubes. He grabbed the topmost and brought it back to Skywarp, holding it out to him. “Crack it open and drink up.”  
  
Sand-scratched violet fingers curling around the magenta glow of the cube, Skywarp gifted him an annoyed look with those glitching optics before breaking the seal and lifting the cube to his lips. Sideswipe watched intently as Skywarp tried to get away with nothing more than a sip, reaching out to tip the cube back up when Skywarp tried to put it back down.  
  
“All of it.”  
  
* * *  
  
Skywarp knew all sorts of ghost stories from Cybertronian history—it had been pretty much the only stuff he’d read in his youth when he hadn’t been forced to read learning material—but none of the stories involved being forced to refuel by the spirit of an enemy combatant. Sorry, _former_ enemy combatant. The dead Autobot didn’t feel cold like the stories said he should, either, now that he was forced to pay attention. In fact, Sideswipe was perfectly warm. A comfortable temperature that Skywarp would have been entirely content to wrap himself up in to fight the chill that was overtaking his own frame. Considering he’d been doing his best to conserve what energon he had by not partaking until he absolutely couldn’t wait any longer, the chill he felt was no doubt the result of systems starting to shut down. Probably why Sideswipe felt warm in comparison, he thought. Nothing said a ghost couldn’t be warmer than a real frame dying.  
  
Maybe Ghost Sideswipe was right to be practically dumping a cube down his intake, Skywarp decided. He swallowed the thick fuel as it passed over his glossa, watching the warning blips on his HUD slowly downgrade in urgency and vanish one by one. He’d gotten to the point where he barely noticed their constant presence, their sudden and increasing absence feeling strange. Skywarp had gotten good at ignoring them. It was kind of nice to see them disappearing, no longer having to focus around them. Of course, he was probably imagining it all. He was pretty good at that, given half a chance—Thundercracker wasn’t the only Seeker with an imagination.  
  
He finished the cube with little need for Sideswipe’s continued help. In fact, he happily stumbled to his pedes and reached for a second from the pile, his systems begging for more. A second cube would be better than one. A third cube would give him a full tank with a top off. He had the second cube open and pouring past his lips as he headed back to the seat. Maybe he’d hit up another after he finished this one.  
  
“Hey,” Sideswipe cautioned, this time tugging the cube _away_ from his mouth as he helped Skywarp sit back down. “Slow down on now or you’ll purge and that won’t do either of us any good.”  
  
As much as he didn’t want to listen to the dead Autobot, Skywarp realized this was a bit of advice he should probably listen to. He eased off chugging the second cube, forcing himself to be contented with much smaller sips. It allowed him to feel the small and discontented rumble of air bubbles gurgling in his fuel tank from his earlier guzzling. Stupid Sideswipe was right, much to Skywarp’s disgust. He was hanging on the edge of bringing all the energon he’d just downed right back up if he overdid it. With luck, it would work out as a gas release rather than the threatened purging.  
  
“Feel better now, huh?” Sideswipe asked, settling on pile of scrap parts that put him a bit higher up than Skywarp.  
  
Skywarp shrugged, wondering if he was far enough gone now to stop caring that he was talking to a ghost. A hallucination. Whatever. He rubbed a hand over the golden glass of his canopy, grimacing at the lattice of cracks that only seemed to be growing. “I was fine before,” he grumbled. He shifted in his seat a bit uncomfortably as he forced himself to add, “…thanks, though.”  
  
Oh, how he wanted to smack away the grin the overtook the Autobot’s face. Sideswipe kicked his pedes a little, making little _ting!_ sounds with each impact on the stack of junk. “No problem,” Sideswipe said, leaning back on his hands. “Now, let’s talk.”  
  
“I’d rather not,” Skywarp said, not at all caring that he’d agreed to it no more than a few kliks ago. He flicked his wings, annoyed with the whole situation all over again. The annoyance had him flicking his wings again as he glared at Sideswipe. What was it going to take to make the dead Autobot figure out that Skywarp had no interest in him?  
  
Sideswipe returned the annoyance with a low, grunting vent of air. His blue optics eyed Skywarp, searching. Whatever he was looking for, Skywarp didn’t know. Finally, though, he gave Skywarp a look that spoke of more than a little discomfort with the situation—Skywarp was glad to see that, at least, was mutual. “Look, Skywarp, I totally get that we’re not exactly Amica or even remotely friendly acquaintances, but neither one of us is getting anything over on the other by completely ignoring each other like we have been. Or, well, like _you_ have. I’ve been trying, at least. What’s the deal? You seemed pretty good with me when we realized the transport shuttle was going down. Or when you couldn’t get away with saying nothing because I’d just keep technobadgering you.”  
  
If he didn’t watch it, Skywarp figured the scowl he kept directing at Sideswipe would eventually get stuck and become his default expression. He tilted up the half empty cube in his hand and sipped at the energon it still contained. It was a delay tactic, obvious to both of them, but Skywarp saw no reason not to act like a petulant sparkling—he was very good at it. One of the things he was best at, even. “Doesn’t matter, I guess,” he said eventually. “I’m drinking fake energon. Might as well talk to the fake Autobot while I’m at it.”  
  
The confusion that scrunched Sideswipe’s face was deeper than Skywarp had seen on anyone in a while. “Fake?” Sideswipe asked, his pedes stilling as he gave Skywarp his full attention. “What the hell does that mean?”  
  
Skywarp snorted and shook his helm, a hard flap of his wings making a small boom vaguely reminiscent of his former trine mate’s sigma ability. “Means just what it always means. Fake. Not real. Or, in your case,” he said, tilting his cube in Sideswipe’s direction, “not alive. Also known as dead.”  
  
Apparently, Sideswipe didn’t know his own circumstances because the look he gave Skywarp on hearing that was one of pure befuddlement. “What?”  
  
“Oh, Primus,” Skywarp groaned, fingers curling around his cube. He did his best to rein in the flare of disbelief—and a little bit of distress—that threatened to overwhelm his field. Of all the revelations he could have had right then, that was not one he wanted to be forced to explain.  
  
“Are you going to talk to me?” Sideswipe asked, not at all sounding like he was going to back off. “I’d really like to hear this one explained, if you don’t mind.”  
  
“It’s why you keep bothering me, isn’t it? Because you’ve got some weird unfinished business with me! Or want me to take care of it for you…. I’m _not_ talking to your brother, no way.” Skywarp dropped his hands and gave Sideswipe what he hoped was an intense gaze. He wasn’t sure how well it worked because Sideswipe was still giving him a confused look. With an annoyed huff, Skywarp just went as blunt as he could. “You don’t know you’re dead, do you?”  
  
* * *  
  



	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Embedded art by [snailtrain](https://twitter.com/snailtrain)! <333 (It's so awesome. XD )

Of all the comments that had been directed in Sideswipe’s direction over the course of his long functioning, Skywarp’s ranked up in the top five. Possibly top two, even, right after Jetfire’s mind-linked comment to him in the tube. That was a real stinker and would definitely be hard to beat, but this? This was pretty damned good. Also, Skywarp’s behavior starting from before the shuttle had even lifted off back on Earth suddenly made complete sense.  
  
“Wow.” Sideswipe didn’t do much more than stare at the Seeker, wondering where to even begin a response. “That… explains so much.”  
  
He supposed it wasn’t entirely out of the question Skywarp might believe him a ghost. It wasn’t as if he’d made any effort to make his survival known. Frankly, he’d made quite the fuss about keeping it secret even from his brother. Just ask Jetfire. So, yeah, Skywarp not knowing was entirely reasonable. Sideswipe sighed and offered the Seeker an apologetic look. After another pause, he reached for a cube of the high grade and cracked it open—he was going to need it.  
  
He looked over at Skywarp again and gave the mech a quiet once over. He took in the tightly restrained quiver in those black plated wings and the open questioning in those shifty optics. It also hit him how very dim those optics _still_ were. How Skywarp hadn’t completely dried up and clunked to an empty halt, Sideswipe didn’t know. “Dude, here,” Sideswipe said, brooking no argument as he snatched up another cube and shoved it at the Seeker. “Take it, no hand backs. Finish what you’ve already got then suck down this one, too. I don’t know how or _why_ the frag you let yourself get like this. I don’t think I’d understand any explanation you tried to give me, either. And I don’t know whether that makes you or me the bigger idiot.”  
  
“Don’t know why I’m drinking this. It’s not like it’s magically gonna get more real the more I chug,” Skywarp said, eyeing him closely as he spoke, but didn’t attempt to return the cube. It was only after Skywarp carefully pulled back the seal and tipped the new cube to fill his mouth that Sideswipe noted he’d given the Seeker one of the high grade cubes. He waited, smashing down the sudden bout of glee that swamped his circuits, for the reaction and was not disappointed when Skywarp slapped a hand against his canopy, wheezing and choking over the unexpectedly powerful ingestion. “Holy slag!” Skywarp cursed around a series of coughs. Optics wet with cleansing fluid stared at Sideswipe in a hard kind of wonderment. “How the frag did you make this?”  
  
“I’m just that damned good,” Sideswipe declared with a grin, sipping again from his own cube. He lifted it in a salute toward the Seeker. “Let’s get tanked and be friends.”  
  
“I don’t know about that second part,” Skywarp said in acknowledgment, wafting the open cube under his olfactory ridge to sniff at the contents, “but I’m down with the first if you explain to me why you don’t know you’re dead.”  
  
Sideswipe examined him a long and slow before heaving air from his vents and tossing back half his remaining engex in one go. “Dude, Skywarp,” he started, tone as sincere and honest as he could make it—not hard, as he was actually being sincere and honest, “I don’t know it because I’m _not_.”  
  
“Yes, you fragging are,” Skywarp argued, wings flicking stiff and authoritative. “I know you are because everyone said you are, even your brother!” He jabbed a forceful finger in Sideswipe’s direction. The look on his face was somewhere between angry and confident. “He even warned me not to mistreat the parts of _you_ that got used in _me!_”  
  
That actually startled a laugh out of Sideswipe, forcing him to carefully steady his grip around the partial cube of engex still sitting in his hands. “Oh, dude, no,” Sideswipe said, the words gusting out of him with continued humor. “No, that’s not parts of me. I’ve got all mine—the working ones, anyway—and whatever new bits Jetfire scrounged up for me in a new frame. What you’ve got? Bits scraped up from a couple of long dead guys shoved in my _old_ frame. Anything left from me for the places you needed them? Trashed, as per Jetfire.”  
  
Skywarp was silent, giving him a look that continued to be mostly disbelief. Sideswipe couldn’t blame him. He’d spent an inordinate amount of time himself worrying about the possibility of spirits attached to the reused parts shoved inside _himself_ over the course of the war. Wings held at a neutral angle, Skywarp gently fanned the air in their little shelter, thoughts obviously aswirl in his helm. For one rare instance in his life, Sideswipe didn’t interrupt. He almost felt guilty, thinking he might be treating Skywarp a little rough-handed, given the situation.  
  
Rubbing a hand over the cracked golden glass of his canopy, Skywarp’s wings stilled. The air quickly grew stagnant in the way of deserts, making Sideswipe wonder if he could convince Skywarp to just keep fluttering his wings. “So,” Skywarp said, nonchalant in the way Sideswipe long ago learned meant someone was deeply rattled, “you mean, all this new stuff in me… came from some losers nobody probably even knows the names of?”  
  
“Isn’t that better than from the guy sitting right in front of you?” Sideswipe shrugged and offered, “And maybe not nobody. I’m sure Jetfire has most of the information stored somewhere. He is one of those science-y types, after all. But… yeah, you’ve pretty much got it in one.”  
  
Skywarp did not look at all impressed with any of this new knowledge imparted to him, sitting taller and his wings suddenly vibrating as he thought over it all. In fact, Sideswipe started to feel downright awkward at the intensity of Skywarp’s rising ire. “Let me tell you something,” Skywarp said, voice hard, “just so you know what I went through because of that. I had your brother get all in my face about those parts while I was _in the medibay_. Then he did it _again_ when I was at the diner with TC. Kept glaring at me like I’d done something wrong just showing up or something. Just for being alive!”  
  
“I, uh, I’m sorry?” Sideswipe said, tentative in his uncertain apology. He wasn’t at all sure how Skywarp needed him to react here—he figured this was his safest bet.  
  
The sharp scowl he sent Sideswipe’s way, optics glowing hot, was completely understandable. He slung back a good slug of his cube, his optics already taking on the multi-hued flickering that came with a good overcharge when he looked at Sideswipe again. “You know, you could still be a ghost and this whole thing right now just a figment of my imagination or you pulling some ghost stunt to make me believe you’re not actually dead, even though you are. I honestly don’t know which possibility is the better one.”  
  
It might have been funny at one point in his life, but Sideswipe had come far too close to that being his reality to laugh at it just yet. “You know, maybe I shouldn’t have given you the engex,” he said, pondering how long Skywarp had been cutting himself back to almost nothing rations. “You’re starting to act a little funny. Well, funnier than usual.”  
  
“Frag off, Autoscum,” Skywarp lashed out, gripping his cube of high grade tight before quickly tossing the rest down his intake. “Give me another one. I can handle my engex better than anyone I know! And considering this isn’t even real, I can handle it even better.”  
  
Sideswipe eyed his own nearly drained cube, then reached for another cube of the good stuff. One for each of them. “Yeah, all right. Here you go.”  
  
* * *  
  
The pounding in Skywarp’s processors felt precisely like the aftermath of getting overcharged like he meant it. And, apparently, if his limited recall was correct, he had very much meant it. He groaned and pressed his face into the soft former seat cushion beneath him as he considered moving, but got no farther than flopping his wings in a feeble wag behind him. “Fucking Primus,” he cursed, vocalizer glitching over every syllable, “why the frag did I do this to myself?”  
  
“I don’t know,” answered a voice he never wanted to hear again from far too close to his right audial, glitching much like his own, “but did you have to drag me along with you?”  
  
“I didn’t do anything of the sort, glitch.” The other mech shifted and rolled with much more success than Skywarp managed—lucky fragger didn’t have to maneuver around a pair of wings—attaining an upright position that Skywarp wasn’t entirely sure he envied or not. He grunted and gave it another go, this time accomplishing the feat of getting himself rolled onto his back, wings swiftly folding out of the way as he tipped over. A gust of air puffed out of his vents as he landed with a dull thump on the sand covered floor. In this position, the sun was in precisely the right spot to glare through a hole in the roof and into his unshuttered optics, leaving him dragging his hand up to protect his face as quickly as his hungover brain module could activate the command for it. “Ugh.”  
  
A shadow fell over him and Skywarp forced himself to look up at Sideswipe. The Autobot looked at least as hungover as Skywarp did himself, giving Skywarp a sudden sense of smug pleasure. Apparently, it showed on his face because Sideswipe’s curious look became a scowl in short order. “What’s so funny, ‘Con?”  
  
“You,” Skywarp replied, one side of his mouth curving up in a smarmy grin. He jabbed a wobbly finger in Sideswipe’s face. “You are stinking hilarious right now. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.” He grunted and winced in sincere pain when Sideswipe thumped him upside the helm. “Not cool, you aft.”  
  
Sideswipe smirked and flopped back down to sit on the floor. He leaned back on his hands, optics squinting into the brightness of the alien sun. Skywarp watched his fingers curl in the sand, winced again as they scratched through and made a screeching symphony across the floor plating of their fallen shuttle.  
  
“Stop that, you slagger,” he admonished, fluttering a half-sparked swat at one of those guilty hands.  
  
The noise stopped, but it came with a silence that Skywarp had long ago learned meant a Serious Discussion was mere moments away from happening. His intuition was not disappointed. “Make you a deal,” Sideswipe started. “I’m _pretty_ sure we didn’t make one before we passed out and I’m _entirely_ sure I wouldn’t remember it if we did, anyway.” Skywarp frowned at the Autobot, fairly certain where this was going. Sideswipe gave him a look and proved him right. “I’ll stop being a slagger if you tell me why you still think I’m dead after all this time stuck here together.” Sideswipe gave him the best mystified look he could make around his hangover. “I mean… _how?_”  
  
“Because you _are_ dead,” Skywarp said, continuing his insistence on the matter. Even if maybe he did feel the tiniest first nigglings that he might possibly be wrong, he wasn’t about to admit it yet. “I can’t believe a guy like you would survive and not mention it to your brother, if no one else. And considering the way your brother got on my case, I am firmly in the belief that he has no idea you’re alive, therefore you. Are. Dead.”  
  
In response, Sideswipe was silent for at least a couple of kliks, but still giving him a look that stated he thought Skywarp was shy a few nuts in the helm. “That makes no sense.”  
  
“It makes perfect sense, if you’re not dead, which _I_ am not,” Skywarp told him, slowly heaving himself upright. Shifting where he sat to face Sideswipe, Skywarp reached over to pat the dead Autobot’s knee. “It’s all right, I don’t expect you to get it or anything. I don’t entirely get it myself, but it’s the truth.”  
  
Sideswipe pulled a confused face and tossed his hands up in a gesture of defeat. “That makes even less sense,” he exclaimed. He paused long enough to breathe in, then out, slow like some kind of temple mech. It was probably more to keep himself from purging everywhere, though. “You know what? Fine. I don’t care about the details because, on the whole, it still explains why you’ve been so fragging weird this whole time. Pretty sure I said that before, too.”  
  
“I have not been fragging weird,” Skywarp shot back, insulted that Sideswipe—ghost or figment status aside—would think that of him. “How have I been fragging weird?”  
  
“Well, for one,” Sideswipe started, one finger lifted as if to begin counting the ways, “you’ve completely ignored me the whole time we’ve been here unless circumstances absolutely forced you to acknowledge my existence.”  
  
“Because you’re not real,” Skywarp said, batting away the reason with ease. “Why should I acknowledge something that’s not real?”  
  
Sideswipe sighed—Skywarp had lost count of how many times he’d done that—and looked away for a moment. Skywarp recognized the action from Thundercracker—it always meant he was considering whether or not he actually wanted to go through with whatever just struck his brain module. Usually, Thundercracker held his glossa, but when he didn’t, it tended to be something that Skywarp knew he should listen to, whether he wanted to hear it or not.  
  
“How about I explain to you why I’m real and living? I remember enough to know I didn’t tell the whole story before we passed out.”  
  
Skywarp watched Sideswipe, hallucination that he was, with narrowed optics. Leaning forward over his crossed legs and settling his elbows on his knees, he arched one orbital ridge. He held his wings at an angle stating his refusal to set aside his disbelief. “Fine,” he said, scoffing. “Prove yourself alive and real and _maybe_ I’ll stop treating you like you don’t exist.”  
  
“Okay,” Sideswipe said, agreeing with a firm meeting of optics. He thumped his palms down on his thighs and huffed a hard vent. “Fine. No fucking interruptions, either.”  
  
“Fine, whatever. Explain away, dead mech.”  
  
Sideswipe turned away, but didn’t even have to look at Skywarp for him to see the roll of optics that accompanied the shake of that black helm. “Come on,” Skywarp prodded when the mech was quiet for too long. He flicked a wing in a show of irritation. The overcharge aftermath was sinking in again, ready to make him even more displeased if his answer took much longer. “Time’s wasting, dead mech.”  
  
“Are you going to keep calling me that?” Sideswipe said, the protest only half-sparked. “It’s going to get old real quick.”  
  
“Is it story time, yet, _dead mech?_” Skywarp asked, emphasizing the words with dedicated enunciation, slow and thorough as his glossa worked over each glyph. Even if Sideswipe wasn’t real, the annoyed set of shoulders that he usually got as a reaction to stuff like that was far too tasty for Skywarp to pass up. He didn’t know if he should be disappointed that all he got was a glare or impressed that the glare was hard and searing enough to leave him checking his plating for damage.  
  
* * *  
  
A good joor later, Skywarp summed up Sideswipe’s tale in perhaps the least poetic way possible. At least he looked like he might be inclined to start believing it. “So, you got saved behind the scenes by some crazy Junkion magic-tech, then just up and ran away from everything with what’s his name’s help?”  
  
Sideswipe grimaced, but shrugged and nodded, staring down at his hands where they sat in his lap. “Jetfire, yeah. And yeah, I guess you could put it that way. Saying it out loud makes it sound really bad, though.” Of course, Sideswipe was well-aware that it sounded just as bad when he thought about it inside his helm, too. “It’s not that I really wanted to leave without a word because I know what it felt like when Sunny disappeared on me, when I thought _he_ was dead. I just… I don’t know.”  
  
He glanced over when Skywarp shifted, just a small sound. The Seeker itched at the top of his helm, his expression somewhere between angry and perplexed. “I don’t know that I believe any of this, but it’s a good story. TC would probably like it. Wanna write a screenplay about it or something. He’s gotten weird like that. Totally not the badass he used to be… not that he was ever _that_ much of a badass.”  
  
A snort made its way unbidden from Sideswipe, an amused smirk curving his mouth.  
  
“What are you laughing at?” Skywarp asked, optics narrowed as he eyed Sideswipe like he was up to something.  
  
“Nothing,” Sideswipe answered. He lifted and hand in a vague wave, shooing away Skywarp’s worries. “I just never considered you might treat Thundercracker the way I treat Sunny. You two aren’t related, are you?”  
  
Skywarp shot out of his slumped sit, back straight and wings held back in pure affront as he twisted around and gave Sideswipe an indignant stare. “What?! No!” he exclaimed. “The less I have in common with that guy, the better. There’s absolutely no relation there at all. And I’d disown him if there was. Not even the same hot spot, just so you know.”  
  
  
  


“Huh,” Sideswipe said, putting his hands behind him and leaning back on them again, “I always heard the three of you were constructed, that’s why you looked alike and everything.” The scowl Skywarp directed at him was enough for Sideswipe to regret to words. He held up his hands in a show of surrender. “Sorry, that was bad on my part. Didn’t mean anything by it.”  
  
The Seeker frowned a little harder at him, but backed down. “Whatever, don’t say slag like that again. Constructeds are just as good as forged bots, even Screamer proved that.”  
  
Sideswipe’s spark twisted for a moment. “I know, I do. And I, uh, heard what he did. Starscream. Jetfire told me. Never would have thought a guy like him would do something like that.”  
  
“Screamer did a lot of things nobody expected,” Skywarp replied, a sad smile hinting on his lips. He shook his helm, obviously shaking away whatever depressing thoughts came into his brain module. Slicing a hand through the air, he brushed off the somber mood. “Enough about that jerk, though. He got more than enough attention while he was still alive. He doesn’t need more now.”  
  
Try as he might to fight it surfacing, Sideswipe couldn’t quite contain the snicker the welled up. Again, it was like watching himself talk about Sunstreaker. He caught Skywarp’s optics and snickered again, only goaded further when Skywarp did the same. Before he knew it, Sideswipe found himself sharing a hard belly laugh—complete with emotion-blazed optics as the constant tension evaporated—with a mech so far off his list of friendlies it seemed impossible.  
  
* * *  
  



	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Embedded art by [red](https://twitter.com/raadst)! Skywarp's so beautifully scowly. <333 :D

Sitting beside the busy energon converter, Sideswipe watched the sky. A few avian creatures had floated high overhead along the currents, not giving any to notice him or the crash site. The still visible skeletons of the creatures that had been tossed at them during the storm made Sideswipe glad for that. He wasn’t interested in chasing off scavengers. In regards to atmospheric conditions themselves, the horizon from every angle remained clear.  
  
If only his sensors were remotely geared toward reading the weather, Sideswipe privately lamented. Having even the slightest indication of another possible storm before it became more than the hint of a crosswise breeze was something he’d never considered necessary before. Now, though? A head’s up like that would be amazing. The new shelter was far from finished and their current one was not capable of withstanding another round.  
  
Glancing toward the half-finished structure he and Skywarp had been working on together the last however long, Sideswipe sighed. They needed to get back to work on it. He didn’t really want to wake Skywarp up, though, knowing how badly the flyer needed rest. Having only just started refueling normally since their arrival on the planet, Skywarp’s frame was still very deep in the process of replenishing minerals and metals that had been stripped from his struts to keep him functioning.  
  
“Stupid Seeker,” Sideswipe murmured with an admittedly fond tone, shaking his helm as he looked back at the tail section where Skywarp slept. After a moment of further quiet, Sideswipe harrumphed and shoved to his feet. There were plenty of things he could do that wouldn’t wake Skywarp from his recharge of the almost deactivated. Like digging through the pile of stuff salvaged from the cargo hold for the supplements he’d come across there. While he was no expert, he was pretty sure Skywarp could do with a good dose of _all_ of them.  
  
Then, after that, there was always the distress beacon, sitting forlorn and dark where Skywarp had set it near the converter. Well, maybe a quick look at the beacon to remind himself what it needed first wouldn’t hurt.  
  
* * *  
  
After a sound recharge, Skywarp woke feeling infinitely better. He was also finally free of lingering overcharge, leaving his thoughts clear—his self-induced starvation had left him highly susceptible to the aftereffects, lasting far longer than they should have. A noted lack of stress regarding his companion didn’t hurt, either. He hadn’t realized how tense he’d been until now, with all of it gone. Movement sent a tumble of junk through one of his subspace pockets as he rolled to get up from his makeshift berthroll.  
  
Curious, he reached in and collected the items. Much to his shock, the moment he pulled out and rediscovered the bits and pieces he’d shoved in there during his escapade across the desert, he found himself waylaid by Sideswipe like the war hadn’t ended. He tumbled back on the sand-covered padding, Sideswipe scrambling frantically atop him.  
  
“What the frag do you think you’re doing, aftwipe?!” Skywarp howled. “I thought we were friends now or something!” Curling in on himself, he kept the scavenged pieces of tech junk safely tucked against his canopy. He batted at Sideswipe with one hand as they rolled on the sandy floor of their beaten up shelter. Eventually, it became obvious Sideswipe wasn’t trying to hurt him. Instead, he worked his hands around Skywarp, digging at his closed fist that hid away the collection of parts he held.  
  
“Dude, just stop! Let me see them!”  
  
“What for?” Skywarp asked with a growl, rolling so that his back was to Sideswipe. The Autobot growled right back and followed along, arms slinging around him and grabbing for the parts. In retaliation, Skywarp flapped his wings back hard like one of those Earth butterflies, whacking the flat surfaces against Sideswipe. A feral grin swept across his face at all the yelps each slap squished out of his assailant. “Take that, you lunatic! You can get the frag off me any time now!”  
  
Instead of playing along, Sideswipe simply draped his weight over the top of Skywarp. No one had ever claimed the grounder had any sort of outlier ability, but Skywarp would have sworn to Primus the grounder suddenly weighed three times heavier. He tried to hold himself up, not wanting to crush the parts still in his hands or his canopy with it’s spiderweb of spreading cracks. Sideswipe had made it happen before; Skywarp wasn’t about to risk it happening while stuck out in the middle of nowhere with no medics.  
  
“What do you want, huh?” Skywarp prodded again, whacking him a few more times. It didn’t do nearly as well with Sideswipe no longer fighting back against him.  
  
“I just want to see those parts you have,” Sideswipe said, sprawled over his back. “Please?”  
  
“What? You some sort of engineer now?” Skywarp asked with a snort. He gave one last good slap of his wings, pleased when Sideswipe grunted. Then he rolled, shoving the Autobot off him. Cradling the parts carefully in both hands against his lower canopy now, Skywarp shifted around until he sat on his aftplates and eyed Sideswipe with suspicion. “You’re going to tell me what you think they are before I do anything.”  
  
Sideswipe crawled into a knee-sit and leaned in close, trying to get a peak at the parts. “Why are you being like this? I’ve known sparklings that weren’t so stubborn.”  
  
“And I’ve spent a damn long time not being told anything. Tell me!”  
  
“Fine,” Sideswipe groaned, slumping down to sit more properly. He waved a hand in the direction of the parts. “I’m looking for parts to repair the beacon and I’m pretty sure from the glimpse I got that at least some of those stand a good chance of working. And the rest I can probably _make_ work.”  
  
That was enough to still Skywarp from his usual twitching. He blinked and gave Sideswipe a long, considering look. “Pretty sure or totally sure?”  
  
Sideswipe didn’t answer right away, no doubt wondering if he could go with the second choice and still have Skywarp believe him. The answer was no, he couldn’t, but Skywarp wasn’t about to tell him that. It was up to Sideswipe to decide whether he was going to be truthful or attempt to schmooze him. Schmoozing was so very far from a winning tactic. Having been schmoozed by the best more than once, though, Skywarp almost wanted Sideswipe to give it a shot.  
  
“I… pretty sure,” Sideswipe finally said, taking the smart route. He looked disappointed in himself, like it was painful to be truthful. Skywarp knew what that felt like. Sideswipe sighed, rubbing a hand over his helm. “Only pretty sure.”  
  
After a klik, not even really considering it, just letting the whole situation sit in his processor, Skywarp relented. “Okay, here,” he said, handing over the collection of parts. “Get to work. I want to see you fix the damn thing in like no time flat just because I didn’t get anything done while I was trying. That’s the way the universe works, you know.”  
  
Sideswipe closed his hand around the parts with a smirk. “Yeah, that is definitely the truth.”  
  
Watching as the Autobot—alive, dead, figment, whatever, he hadn’t totally decided what he believed yet—got up and sought out the beacon, Skywarp flopped back and pillowed his helm on his hands, elbows akimbo to either side. “Well, come on, then! Hurry it up. Sure, we’ve got all day and longer, but let’s not take longer than we really have to, right? Don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get off this damn planet yesterday.”  
  
Grabbing up the broken device from where it sat outside by the converter, Sideswipe hauled it back inside and returned to where he’d been sitting. He plopped back down, nudging one of Skywarp’s elbows out of the way, apparently not concerned with being so close to a Decepticon anymore. Or sort of Decepticon, Skywarp mused. He had renounced the brand, after all. Kind of. Maybe not officially, but the Joes weren’t exactly the type to brand their symbol to someone that stood for pretty much the exact opposite of whatever it was they stood for. (Honestly, though, it was probably time to scrape off that symbol, too.)  
  
As he watched, Sideswipe yanked the side panel of the beacon open and slotted the first piece directly into it near the gaping bottom without so much as a slight hesitation. Sure, the mounting was a little rough, having been scraped and bent by the landing, but that was definitely where the piece was supposed to be. Skywarp blinked and rolled over to look at the beacon closer, shocked and perhaps a touch of suddenly hopeful. “That… that _fit_. Try another one.”  
  
Blue optics looked his way, crinkled in amusement at the corners. He held up another piece, loose wires dangling from three of the four sides. A crack ran across the center of the narrow, rectangular board. “That’s the plan, Warper. Just need to do a little Jackie-style mending on this one first.”  
  
Skywarp shifted back at such familiarity and eyed the Autobot with hard optics. His wings jumped upright with uncertainty. “What did you just call me?”  
  
Not even looking away from the small circuit board as he carefully applied some sort of glue to one of the sheared edges, Sideswipe replied, “What? I hardly ever call anyone by their full name if I’m around them all the time. Takes too much effort. Unless it’s an officer, then I watch myself a little better.” He paused, tip of his glossa poking out one corner of his mouth as he carefully pressed the cracked board back together. Holding the pieces in place so that the glue might fuse them together properly, he added, “Most of the time, anyway.”  
  
“You always carry glue around?” Skywarp asked, quickly changing the subject before it could get any deeper. He didn’t need to be reminded that he’d spent far too much time around a guy like Sideswipe. Fragging Autobot.  
  
“Don’t you?” Sideswipe asked in return, leaning down to gently tease the fragile circuit board into another open slot. It slipped cleanly into the one remaining open catch that fit it—the other likely ground to dust in the crash—wobbling a bit along the freshly repaired break as Sideswipe dropped a spot of glue to hold it in place. He juggled the wires around to get them connected once it was secure. How he knew which went to which bits, Skywarp didn’t know, nor did he particularly care. If Sideswipe knew enough to get the distress beacon operational, though, Skywarp was more than happy to let him do it. Especially if a ship showing up pretty much immediately after it got turned on.  
  
Of course, there was every chance that could be a wild rambling of fuel-starved processors. The likelihood that he was actually just laying on the sand, staring vacantly at the blinding orb of the alien sun as his frame slowly ticked away the last reserves of energon in his lines was still huge despite the high possibility of Sideswipe’s explanation being reality. After all, bots didn’t just come back from the dead, forget Bumblebee and Sunstreaker and Ironhide and… well, just forget all the mechs that _had_ come back. Especially as some of them were now gone again. And Sideswipe’s story was just as likely Skywarp’s imagination at work, meaning it wasn’t really a very good story—Thundercracker was the storyteller, not him.  
  
Primus, he _missed_ Thundercracker, the big dumb idiot.  
  
Strangling that thought before it went any further, he kicked back like he hadn’t a care left in the universe. “How much longer is it going to take you to get that all together?”  
  
“Soon,” Sideswipe answered, not looking away from his task. “As long as you found all the parts—or enough of them, at least—we’ll be able to start getting whatever ship is out there searching for the shuttle turned in our direction.”  
  
“Yeah, sounds good.” Skywarp settled in, wings drifting through a slow wag just to get the dry, stagnant air moving around them.  
  
* * *  
  
“And that should do it,” Sideswipe said, pushing the last wire into place on the beacon while Skywarp watched. He closed up the panel, carefully spot welded a bit of plating across the open bottom, and set the beacon upright in front of them.  
  
Skywarp peered at the distress beacon closer, curious fingers tapping along the edge of his jaw and chin. “Where’s the on switch?”  
  
“Right here,” Sideswipe said, leaning over and pushing a button just off to one side of the beacon’s main display panel. The panels on all sides lit up like some sort of decoration for a holy day. A soft beep emitted from it at an obnoxious frequency as it adjusted to being powered on, then faded to a level all but the most finely tuned audials couldn’t pick up.  
  
“And we’re sure it’s working the way it’s supposed to?” Skywarp asked, reaching out and tapping those fingers along one edge of the beacon now. His wings flicked through a pattern Sideswipe had finally deciphered as curiosity mixed with a bit of apprehension.  
  
“No,” Sideswipe admitted with a sigh, “we’re not.” He slumped back and reached for a cube. Standard mid-grade, this time—he like his high grade as much as the next bot, but having gone on another bender the “night” before, he knew his still recovering systems were not in any sort of shape to handle it again just yet. “I’m pretty sure they’ll find us eventually, anyway, you know. I mean, of course they’re going to look for a missing transport shuttle with no war going on. This is just a way to maybe make it happen a little faster.”  
  
Skywarp favored him with a look of disgruntled annoyance, arms crossing over his chest. “I know that,” he said. “I’m not stupid, just not expecting that they put a lot of emphasis on it, you know?” Sideswipe didn’t blame him for thinking like that. The war hadn’t always made searching for lost ships a priority. It was probably worse among the Decepticons. Skywarp kicked at a small pile of sand, scattering the grains everywhere. “How long do you think it’ll take them to find us?”  
  
  
  
Shrugging, Sideswipe made some mental calculations. “Don’t know. There was a point where we would have already been found, but that was a long time ago. Now, though?” He shrugged again. “With all the slag that’s gone on? Who knows? Tomorrow? Next week? Maybe on the way back because they missed us the first time they passed by?”  
  
Skywarp snorted and flopped back again, staring up at the roof of their shared shelter, helm rested on his pillowed hands once more. “Wouldn’t that be just my luck? Oh hey, sorry we didn’t see you before. We totally missed the giant and sprawling wreckage of the shuttle in that wide open desert it crashed in.”  
  
“Sounds like you’re blessed with the same luck I have,” Sideswipe said, sniggering. He grabbed a crate and sat down on it, leaning forward to set his elbows on his knees as he watched Skywarp. The Seeker pulled up his legs, crossing one knee over the other and kicking the floating foot, distinctly restless. They fell into silence, broken only by the hum of the solar converter at work and the occasional beep from the activated distress beacon. Sideswipe aimed his own kick at the thin layer of sand built up over the shuttle decking.  
  
It was too quiet. Thus, Sideswipe did the only thing acceptable in the situation—he talked some more.  
  
“So, who are you hoping to see again once we get off this damn planet?” he asked, kind of regretting the question once it passed from his lips. He was fairly certain the question would be turned back around on him and he definitely didn’t want to answer it himself. Hopefully, Skywarp would choose to keep the whole attempt at a conversation innocuous in flavor. He wasn’t sure at all what was going through Skywarp’s helm, though, when he peeked over at the Seeker. Those red optics, become so familiar a sight in their enforced time together, narrowed and observed him thoughtfully. He could see the thoughts spooling through Skywarp’s processor, almost literally watching him pick and choose among the things he might possibly choose as an answer, if he answered at all. Eventually, Skywarp huffed out a deep vent, returning his focus to the ceiling. His sharply bent elbows waggled a little as if to emulate the more subtle movement of his wings, restrained as they were by his position.  
  
“Is it weird to say that I still don’t want to see anyone? I mean, that’s the whole reason I left in the first place,” Skywarp finally admitted.  
  
Oh, how Sideswipe felt him on that. He grunted softly, inwardly cringing as he pictured Sunstreaker in his mind’s eye. “Nope, not weird at all,” he replied. Leaning deeper into his legs, Sideswipe reached down toward the ground and dragged his finger through the sand, idly drawing meaningless trails. “I’m kind of right there with you, I think.”  
  
“What? Not even your brother?” Skywarp asked, giving him a swift glance, as if surprised by the revelation.  
  
Sideswipe met his shocked gaze and gave him a half-sparked smile. “Not even him.” He paused, letting the idea process now that he’d said it aloud. “Well, maybe more like not yet. I probably shouldn’t have left the way I did, but… you know, right?”  
  
Another silence descended, but it didn’t last nearly as long and it was Skywarp that broke it this time. “Yeah, I get that. Not yet.”  
  
They shared a smile that was perhaps the calmest and most fully developed Sideswipe had felt cross his face in longer than he could truly remember. “So, we can either work on the new shelter or I’ve got a couple games stashed in my subspace. Wanna play?”  
  
Skywarp pushed himself to sit upright, shaking off the sand in the process. “Why not? What have you got?”  
  
* * *  
  



	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! Two chapters in one day because the nitpicky editing went so well. :D This wraps up the story! Thanks for reading, everyone! I appreciate all the comments and kudos and everything. <3
> 
> Artwork is now embedded in chapters 9 and 10! Much love to [snailtrain](https://twitter.com/snailtrain) and [red](https://twitter.com/raadst) for gifting this silly fic with such gorgeous pieces! *__*

By his own guess—since his chronometer showed no signs of reviving itself—Skywarp spent another couple of weeks with Sideswipe as they waited to be found or not. They talked, they ignored one another, they fought, they shored up their new shelter, they gambled energon goodies on card games, they got fendered on homebrew before pretty much every recharge cycle. Skywarp really couldn’t remember the last time life had been so good, although he didn’t quite completely believe it was all real. Even after all this time, doubt still plagued the back of his processor that he was imagining the whole thing while he actually lay baking in the sand, empty and rusting. Good things didn’t happen to him, after all.  
  
Now, though, having just reached a sufficiently deep level of recharge despite bright sunlight outside, Skywarp was not at all pleased when a loud boom and whoosh startled him right out of it. Sitting upright, he cycled the hot desert air hard through his vents a few times before noticing Sideswipe was already peering out the front door of their shelter. A visible quiver traced through his dented and scratched plating at whatever he saw outside.  
  
“What’s going on?” Skywarp asked, easing to his pedes. He hated the creaks that the hard ground was putting into his frame—they really should put more effort into making comfier pseudo-berths, the repurposed seat cushions weren’t doing much, anymore. He was just about to suggest such, when Sideswipe tossed a wide-opticked grin at him.  
  
“It’s a ship. A Cybertronian ship!” Before Skywarp could react with more than a questioning look, Sideswipe was out the door and rushing headlong into whatever was coming their way. Typical, he’d learned of the mech. Not much unlike himself, if he were truthful, though—which was coming a lot easier these days.  
  
Fluffing out his plating and giving himself a shake like a turbofox, Skywarp dumped as much extraneous sand from his frame as he could and hurried out of the shelter after Sideswipe. His gaze quickly shifted upward as he caught up with him, optics filling with the sight of a very recognizably Cybertronian ship, just as Sideswipe had declared. Skywarp’s spark picked up speed in its rotation, flickering wildly as joyous relief crashed through his systems. His wings perked and wiggled with a touch of sparkling-like excitement he would later deny. “They found us!”  
  
Sideswipe cackled and leaped upward, catching him in what Skywarp first thought was a headlock, but quickly realized was a hug. He’d only just started to bring his own arms up to awkwardly return the gesture when Sideswipe let go and bounded across the sand toward the ship. It landed with a paint-scouring blast of sandy exhaust from the descent thrusters. Skywarp sighed amusement and let his arms drop back to his sides, watching as Sideswipe barely managed to wait for the ramp to slide down. He smirked at the way the Autobot twitched and bounced on his pedes with that only barely contained energy of his. Then it hit him. This was it. This was when he learned whether or not he’d spent that last however long with a companion supplied by a damaged brain module or the real deal.  
  
Glancing up the ramp when movement appeared at the top, Skywarp watched with silent anticipation of his answer. If whoever was on that ship gave any indication that they noticed Sideswipe was there, he _had_ to be the real thing. He didn’t acknowledge the wobble of fear that bubbled underneath. He only knew he hoped it was all real.  
  
* * *  
  
Sideswipe’s spark nearly snuffed itself when he saw the first bot step onto the ramp. He’d know that yellow paint anywhere—he’d had his audials boxed more times than he could count for calling it yellow, after all. The distinctive audial fins decorating the helm soundly doused any possible remaining doubt. (There was none.) It was such a shock and relief after so long with nothing more than Skywarp and all the gray frames to see his brother that Sideswipe forgot perhaps he should move. The intense look Sunstreaker favored him with as he stalked down the ramp might have scared others off—and had many times over the course of the war—but it only wound Sideswipe’s exuberant tension tighter. “Sunny?”  
  
That broke something in the air between them, the unnameable tension. Those oh so familiar blue optics narrowed in vicious anger. As Sideswipe watched, Sunstreaker’s slow and methodical descent turned into a full-on pelting run, bringing him right at Sideswipe with no hint of slowing. The air caught in Sideswipe’s vents and he managed no more than a single step backward before Sunstreaker came within arm’s reach. His right fist was pulled back, fingers clenched tight. Then, a nano-klik later, Sunstreaker let loose with a powerful roundhouse, putting even more strength into it with a pivot of his hips.  
  
The collision of fist and jaw flipped Sideswipe’s helm back and to the side, his entire frame following after to land in the sand with a thud and rattle of plating. He groaned and stared up at the sky, blinking slowly as his optics struggled to recalibrate acuity. Raising a hand to his face, Sideswipe didn’t even get so far as to make sure the denting wasn’t too bad. Instead, he suddenly found himself stood back on his feet, dizzy and wrapped securely in a strong pair of arms, Sunstreaker’s face pressed deeply into the side of his neck.  
  
“You fucking aft,” Sunstreaker murmured, puffing hot air against his neck and squeezing his arms tighter around Sideswipe’s chassis. “You couldn’t tell me? You let me think you were dead?!” He shoved Sideswipe away and glared at him, optics pale and sparking with overwhelming emotion. His grip on Sideswipe’s shoulders tightened enough to leave more dents and he gave Sideswipe a shake. “Why would you do that?”  
  
And that was all it took to wring a sudden and unexpected sob out of Sideswipe, his entire frame sinking in utter guilt and remorse. His own optics starting to bleed brighter, his voice shook as he answered, “I’m so sorry, Sunny. I didn’t mean to make you think I was dead, I _didn’t_, but I couldn’t do it. I just… I couldn’t—”  
  
Then Sunstreaker pulled him in close again and Sideswipe held on as if he intended to never let go. His spark thrummed in his chassis. His field flared out and twined together with his brother’s, intent on reintegrating them the way they had been so long ago. “We’re okay now,” Sunstreaker murmured, lifting one hand to curl around the shape of Sideswipe’s helm, comforting him as best the yellow mech was able. “Or we’re going to be.”  
  
* * *  
  
Watching the display between the brothers, Skywarp frowned and tried to figure out why his reaction was a slow and deep-reaching crumble inside. Sideswipe was obviously the real deal, so what was that all about? Oh, he’d unloaded so much slag to the mech that he wasn’t sure actually existed and it had felt good in the process. Realizing it his innermost secrets indeed actually rested in real hands that were not his own? Maybe he wasn’t quite ready for it, but it was definitely too late now. If gossip spread about him and those things, Skywarp knew exactly who to take up the matter with. There he was, after all, already spilling everything to his brother. “Stinking Autobot,” Skywarp muttered, squeezing his fists tight in futility. “Probably should have known this is how it would work out. My luck is just that bad, isn’t it?”  
  
“Yeah, your luck’s never been very good,” responded a voice from right beside him. It was deep and rumbly and one he’d known since before the war. A tiny, muffled “woof!” sounded from down by this pedes. “See? Even Buster knows.”  
  
Skywarp looked down on the fuzzy little organic in her specially constructed space suit. A tiny ache in his spark had him bending down to give her a good look. He gently bumped a fingertip against her helmet, eliciting a happy round of barking and bouncing from the canine. “Yeah, I see that,” Skywarp replied, not turning his attention from Buster. “How you doing, girl?” he asked, hoping he didn’t sound too much like he’d actually missed her—which he did, but no one needed to know that. Not even himself. “Been a while since I last saw you.”  
  
“What, no love for me?” Thundercracker asked with a quiet laugh, gazing down on him, arms coming up to cross over his canopy. He gave his blue wings a jesting wiggle, a crooked grin on his mouth. “I mean, I know we’ve only just started being friendly again, but I _did_ come to help rescue you.”  
  
With a sigh, Skywarp looked up to meet Thundercracker’s optics. He couldn’t stop the curve that overtook his mouth, touched with a hint of something bordering on numbness, but definitely real, like so much else at that moment. “TC, I don’t know how to answer anything just yet,” he said, reaching out a hand to let Buster climb on before standing back up. He held her carefully, totally understanding the way Thundercracker suddenly started hovering just a bit closer. It was a precarious situation for him, too. “I’ve got a whole lot to process right now, most importantly finding out I was not stuck with a dead Autobot, but I’ll get back to you on it?”  
  
The smile on his wingmate’s face grew into something almost overwhelming in its vehemence. Skywarp curled his fingers safely around Buster so as not to drop her when Thundercracker enveloped him in an all-encompassing hug. “That sounds awesome, Warp,” the blue Seeker exclaimed, pulling him even closer. “I’m so glad we’re friends again, you know that, right?”  
  
“Yeah, I know,” Skywarp told him, truthfully. He allowed himself to lean into the hold, soaking up the living warmth of his long-time companion. A little whine pulsed gratitude through his engine, but he ignored it, tamping down the sound as much as he could. “Me, too, I guess.”  
  
“TC, let’s go!” the voice of Sideswipe’s brother called out from the rescue ship. “They’re sending in the professionals to pick over the crash site. We should get out of here before we get in the way.”  
  
Skywarp pulled back and looked up at the ship. Sideswipe was already halfway up the ramp with Sunstreaker. He was leaned into his brother, clinging in a way that almost had Skywarp uncomfortable viewing. Of course, Sideswipe had a lot more reason to be an emotional fragger than Skywarp. The farther they got up the ramp, though, the more Sideswipe seemed to pull himself together. He shared only minimal contact, shoulders brushing, with his brother as they finally entered the ship.  
  
Curling his hand even more protectively around Buster, the tiny organic sitting calmly in his palm, Skywarp gave the shelter he’d shared with Sideswipe a last look over his shoulder. He frowned at the sudden sense of loss, then started a slow trudge through the sand toward the bottom of the rescue ship’s ramp. The swish and scrape of sand let him know Thundercracker was right behind him. “Let’s get out of this dump,” Skywarp said as he finally tromped up into the ship. “I’m getting sick of the scenery.”  
  
“Right,” Thundercracker said, coming up alongside him with a warm, lopsided smile. His hand slapped Skywarp on the back, right between the wings, perhaps a little harder than necessary. Not a surprise. Thundercracker had always been a bit of clod. “Time to get you two guys home.”  
  
“Yeah, home,” Skywarp said, his frame drooping from shoulders to wings to anything else that could droop. He wasn’t sure where or what home was anymore. While it wasn’t this place, he was sure it wasn’t where Thundercracker was taking him, either.  
  
* * *  
  
Sideswipe sat waiting in the mostly empty terminal lobby, trying not to check his chronometer too often, uninterested in staring out the large picture windows that dwarfed frames even larger than his own. He wasn’t much impressed by cloudy Earth afternoons. Or any Earth afternoons, really, anymore. To his left, Sunstreaker sat, nibbling at a rust stick while scrolling through a datapad. The contents, he’d said, were the rough of Thundercracker’s first attempt at prose as opposed to screenwriting. “I can feel it every time you check the clock, you know,” Sunstreaker said, a smirk in his tone. “Don’t worry, they’ll be here with plenty of time to spare. TC’s a bit of a space case, but he’s not _that_ bad. He’ll make sure Skywarp makes it.”  
  
Bob burbled in agreement at their feet. Sideswipe leaned forward and smiled down at the Insecticon, reaching to give him a scritch between the antennae. “Sorry, bro. I’m just not any more patient now than I’ve ever been, unfortunately.”  
  
A snort preceded Sunstreaker’s reply. “Have you commed him to ask how close they are yet?”  
  
“Of course I have,” Sideswipe said, leaning down more to give an enthusiastic Bob even better scritches. “You know I have. He told me to knock it off.”  
  
“Because you commed him relentlessly, I’m sure.”  
  
Sideswipe, without stopping his Bob scritching, turned a scowl on his brother. “I did not.”  
  
“Yeah, you did,” refuted Skywarp, the Seeker suddenly appearing behind the row of seats, leaning over to offer the trilling Insecticon a few pats of his own.  
  
It was an entirely reflexive response on Sideswipe’s part, the squawk and flailing whack to Skywarp’s helm that followed. “How many times have I told you not to do that?!”  
  
Skywarp only sniggered and climbed over the seats, settling at Sideswipe’s right, a seat left open between them for wing-space. While Thundercracker made a less startling entrance, taking up position beside Sunstreaker, Skywarp gave Sideswipe a smug look. “More times than I’ve told you to stop comming me, I’m sure. I didn’t even warp this time and still got you. How did you survive the war?”  
  
“I didn’t,” Sideswipe shot back at him, grinning. He ignored the unimpressed glare Sunstreaker aimed at him—his brother often told him his sense of humor needed an upgrade.  
  
“Stupid ghost,” Skywarp said with a flick of his wings, attempting to hold an obviously fake mien of disgust. The attempt didn’t last long, as he slumped into a more comfortable position and nudged a pede at Bob. “Anyway, I told you we’d be here on time, didn’t I? Like fifty times, at least?”  
  
“Shut up,” Sideswipe said, meeting the joking reprimand in the friendliest of manners. The easy dynamic they’d only barely started to build between them on the desert planet had grown in depth since their rescue.  
  
“So, we ready to do this?” Skywarp asked, keeping his optics on where Bob closely watched his tapping pede. “For real, this time?”  
  
“Hey, both of us actually wanted to go _last_ time. It wasn’t just running away from all the slag here on Earth,” Sideswipe replied, smirking as he nudged Bob from behind with his own pede, sending to Insecticon into a fit of chittering and indecision as to which mech to attack. “I still want to see New Cybertron. I know you do, too. Better together, right?”  
  
An announcement came over the intercom system, letting them know the flight to New Cybertron was prepared for boarding. Sunstreaker shook his head and almost smiled. “Better get moving, both of you. Jetfire is taking your running away again seriously if he’s going far enough to have the flight announced.”  
  
Sideswipe chuckled and rose to his feet, grabbing up the carry on bag that sat shoved under his seat. “Yeah, yeah. Comm you when we get there?”  
  
It was Thundercracker that answered that. “And halfway there, while you’re at it.”  
  
“Hell, we’ll even send pictures with our letters if you’re gonna get all caretaker on us,” Skywarp replied, giving Bob one last pat before slinging his own bag over a shoulder. “Take care of Buster, TC. I’ll be back before you know it.”  
  
“Me, too,” Sideswipe said to Sunstreaker, meeting his brother’s optics with the most honest intent he could ever recall. “We’ll be all right, both of us, Sunny.”  
  
Sunstreaker grumbled a bit, but eventually pulled a box out of his subspace and shoved it at Sideswipe. “For you and him. Don’t make us hunt you down again.”  
  
Putting the box away to go through later—it was energon goodies, it always was—Sideswipe caught Sunstreaker up in a quick hug then bounced off toward the ramp, dragging Skywarp along with him. The Seeker half-turned and waved at Sunstreaker and Thundercracker, grinning as he nearly tripped while not watching where he was going. “Remember to give Bob and Buster snacks for me!”  
  
Then they were stowing their bags and finding seats in Jetfire’s hold. The mech’s shuttle alt mode hummed with life around them. “Get belted in, guys,” he said. “The weather’s looking a little bumpy on the way out.”  
  
“Great, _again_,” Skywarp quipped, rolling his optics. “Another fine start to our grand adventures.”  
  
“Hey, Jetfire,” Sideswipe said, exchanging a glance with Skywarp, getting a nod to go ahead from the Seeker. He approached his next words with a little trepidation, but didn’t let it stop him. “Any chance we can make a pit stop along the way?”  
  
The softness of Jetfire’s EM field was fuzzy and understanding. “Already figured it into the flight plan, guys.”  
  
“Awesome,” Sideswipe said, relaxing into his seat. A content smile curved his mouth. “Thanks.”  
  
“Yeah, thanks,” Skywarp added before giving Sideswipe a curious look. “So, did your brother put anything good in that box?”  
  
Sideswipe snickered and pulled it out to share. “Always.”  
  
* * *  
  



End file.
